


The Beginner's Guide to Everyday Magic

by aurevell



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Derek is trying his best, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, Magic Rituals, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mental Anguish, POV Stiles Stilinski, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski is Pushed Out of the Pack, Stilinski Family Feels, graphic descriptions of countryside setting, not with malicious intentions but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22813372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurevell/pseuds/aurevell
Summary: When the latest threat sweeps into Beacon Hills, Derek decides that the very-much-human Stiles needs to be severed from the pack for his own safety. But when the ritual goes unexpectedly wrong, Stiles finds himself alone—and unable to reach out for help when he needs it most.Cue a retreat to his mom’s old house, where he finds that magic is more real than he ever could have imagined.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 212
Kudos: 1106
Collections: Sterek to read during social distancing





	1. The Not-Severing Ritual

On the morning when the ritual’s supposed to happen, Stiles makes enough pancakes to feed an army, downs approximately three-quarters of them, and spends the next ten minutes puking his guts out.

So he’s already in a pretty crappy mood when he gets back to his room to find Derek crawling through his window like some leather-clad nightmare. “Gah!” he blurts, flailing helplessly. His upset stomach burbles in agreement. “Jesus, what if you _knocked?_ What if _any_ of you knocked? Dad’s not even here—you could have just used the front door!”

Derek has the nerve to look grumpy, which is probably fair. Stiles has never really had a problem with werewolves randomly creeping into his room at odd hours (though what that says about him, he’s not sure). “It wasn’t locked,” Derek grunts, settling onto the bookshelf beneath the windowsill.

“It’s never locked,” Stiles sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. His mouth tastes like acid. “Look, dude, why are you here? I’m getting ready for school.”

“Didn’t sound like it.”

“Dude. _Privacy._ You’re supposed to pretend you don’t hear stuff like that.”

Derek ignores him. “Are you okay?” he asks, frowning. “With...everything. It’s just that things got kind of weird yesterday.”

“Yeah, they really did,” Stiles replies testily, shoving his physics book into his backpack. _Weird_ doesn’t really cover how he feels about the latest threat to the pack, and the dumbass solution they came up with. _Stupid_ is closer to the truth. He twists around in search of the stack of loose papers that make up his final APUSH essay, and then he shoves those in his bag, too. 

“ _Are you okay_?” Derek repeats slowly, like Stiles is an idiot who needs help focusing. “I mean, you were just—”

“I’m peachy.” Stiles pulls one sock onto his foot and then can’t find its match. “Obviously _._ ”

After watching Stiles draw a steadying breath, Derek slips from his perch. He makes a move as if he’s going to grab Stiles’s forearms, remembers why he can’t, and sighs. “Look, Stiles, just... _breathe_. Things are going to be fine.”

“Yeah. I know. Why _not_ just do some dumb severing ritual Deaton pulled out of a book older than the Gutenberg Bible? It’s fine. For sure. But seriously, does nobody bother to update spells? Like a computer program, right? You’d think it all gets outdated after a while.”

“Stiles, it’s not ‘severing.’ And it’ll work. I swear.” He somehow magically (seriously, maybe magically?) finds and pulls Stiles’s missing sock from under the dresser and tosses it at him. “It’s just to keep you safe. And...it’s not forever. We talked about this; you’ll just pretend you don’t know us for a while, and everything’ll be fine.”

Nodding slowly, Stiles lowers himself onto the bed to pull on his sock and shoes. “You’re not...worried about it?”

“It’ll be weird, not having you around,” Derek replies at once, with a one-shouldered shrug. “But I’m not worried. That’s just what it takes to keep you safe. Besides, it won’t even change much—you said you can’t even feel the pack bonds.”

“Yeah.” Stiles stares at his knees. For the hundredth time, he wishes he _could_ feel them. Then maybe this wouldn’t be happening. But Derek seems so casual about this, like it happens every day. It seems stupid for Stiles to keep making a big deal about it, then. Even if anxiety thrums in his veins like an electrical current, like he’s waiting for an actual blow.

“Grab your stuff,” Derek says, stepping out into the hall. “I’m taking you to school.”

“What? But Roscoe’s fine.”

“Just to be safe.”

Stiles shrugs, grabs his bag, and follows Derek out the front door. 

It doesn’t feel weird being alone with him anymore, not like it used to. Over the last few months, everyone in the pack’s gotten a lot better at...well, actually being _pack._ The bickering is still a problem sometimes, and Jackson will always be Jackson. But for the most part, they’ve grown from tolerating each other to actual, honest-to-god friendship. Scott and Derek aren’t at each other’s throats all the time. Lydia’s made actual progress at being less condescending, given her general braininess. Derek’s finally accepted that Allison’s here to stay. Peter is maybe trying to be helpful sometimes, when he hasn’t fucked off to wherever it is he goes when he’s not around. All of it’s probably had something to do with all the weird supernatural stuff passing through: pixies, trolls, even a couple ghouls last month. 

Nothing like recurring near-death experiences to bring people together.

But out of everyone, Stiles and Derek definitely earn the Most Improved award—at least in Stiles’s opinion. He likes to think it’s just that he grew on Derek slowly over time. Like mold. Or something less gross. Yeah, he’s just a fragile human, but he occasionally brings kickass strategies to the table, or at least hits things with his baseball bat until they die. Which is the true path to earning anyone’s respect.

All that to say, he and Derek are kind of actual friends now. Which is something Stiles never would have believed a year ago. 

The ride to school is spent in silence, which (as Stiles has learned) is pretty much Derek’s natural state. But it’s a comfortable silence, and Stiles gets a little lost in thought watching the road ahead. Derek’s presence beside him is reassuring, enough to keep him from worrying over what’s going to happen this evening. Like it’s just the two of them, separate and safe from the rest of the world.

Derek pulls into the parking lot at school, stopping near the main gate. “Keep close to everyone else today,” he says as Stiles doubles over to grab his backpack. “And catch a ride to my place with Scott.” Stiles salutes him cheekily and throws the bag over his shoulder. Derek rolls down the window almost as soon as he shuts the door. “Seriously, don’t worry,” the werewolf adds. “It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. Thanks, big guy.”

The Camaro pulls off, making way for the rest of the carpool lane. Stiles turns his back to it all, thinking about how weird it is that Derek came over this morning for the sole purpose of making sure he got to school safely. It’s enough to make him feel warm. Hopeful. 

But he quickly quashes _that_ feeling as he makes his way through the crowd. 

There’s someone from the pack in literally every single one of his classes but one, so they don’t exactly need CIA-level coordination to keep tabs on him. He lets Scott copy his notes in chemistry, Lydia watches him doodle in his AP Lit notebook, and he and Isaac sneak a few Oreos in the back of calculus.

Erica meets him at the door after Econ, smirking. “Batman! Ready for lunch?”

“All I’ve ever wanted was food,” Stiles replies fervently. 

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks, I slept none hours, so.”

Erica blinks at him in surprise. “Why? Because of this evening?”

Stiles shrugs, not really wanting to talk about it. Luckily, there’s an easy distraction. “It’s _Taco Tuesday,_ ” he sighs happily, diving into the line. Erica follows him in, and they make their way to the table where the rest of the pack is waiting.

Somehow, it feels like just any other day. They’re talking about dumb, normal stuff: the schedule for finals, the locker cleanup tomorrow, their plans for the summer. Except that Stiles notices partway through that they’re all keeping their distance from him. It’s subtle. There are no friendly slaps on the shoulder, no grinning elbow nudges, no kicks under the table. No one’s scent marking _him._ Not today.

It hurts. He gets it, but it hurts anyway.

He eats his feelings, though, stuffing his mouth with tacos and making puppy dog eyes at Allison until she grudgingly surrenders the rest of her curly fries.

They say the Moth Witch can’t be seen or heard. No matter how good your vision, or your sense of smell, she might as well be a ghost. They say you’d never know if she was right beside you. 

But they also say that’s not when you should be worried. The time to worry is when she actually _does_ reveal herself. She’s an old hag, with hair as silver as the moon and clothes as black as night, fluttering down from the night sky like a great black moth. And if she’s seen, you know that someone nearby will vanish with her, someone you know or someone you love. Gone, spirited away into the night. 

“Well, _I_ still say it sounds like a shitty urban legend,” Stiles says sullenly, frowning at the wall-length window. They’re waiting in Derek’s loft, the rest of the wolves pacing restlessly like caged beasts. 

“That’s also what werewolves sounded like before all _this_ happened,” Scott replies, gesturing vaguely at himself.

“Touché.”

“Deaton says half of one of the northern packs disappeared overnight a few weeks ago,” Derek interjects, checking his phone again. He’s hunched on the armchair of the sofa, and the afternoon sunlight casts a fiery gold glow onto his skin. “Before that, a small coven and a druid went missing in Seattle. They think it was her, too. It’s not just a legend.”

Stiles’s stomach is doing somersaults. “Where do you think she takes them, then?”

“I don’t really care, and I’d really love it if none of us ever find out.”

“So, where’s this bitch at now?” Erica wonders aloud, flopping onto the sofa. Stiles is suddenly grateful for her flippant attitude.

“Nothing new from Deaton,” Derek reports, not looking up from his phone. “Not since the pack up north. She could be anywhere.”

“He’s on his way now, though?”

“I _hate_ this,” Stiles interrupts suddenly, turning away from the window to face them. “If you all die, what’s the point?”

“You’ll be alive,” Scott says firmly.

“But it doesn’t make sense, no one _else_ is getting banished from the pack—”

“No one’s _banishing_ you.”

“Fine, _exiling_ , then—”

“Stiles,” Derek jumps in, “you’re the only one of us who’s human,” he declares, and before Stiles can object, he adds, “ _and_ not heavily trained in combat.” Behind him, Alison grimaces a little in sympathy. “If we’re going up against something like this, we _have_ to be careful.”

“We’ve dealt with tougher shit than this!”

Isaac snorts. “Right, pixies and trolls—”

“And an _Alpha werewolf_ that turned out to be your uncle!”

“Yeah, but _you_ didn’t actually do anything that time," Scott says. "At least, till the end.”

“Hey, but—”

“If we _have_ to fight her, we will. But Deaton thinks she doesn’t stay in one place for long. So if she passes by us, you just come right back. We undo the ritual. No harm, no foul.”

 _Yeah, right._ Stiles scrubs his face. “But—”

“If I could do this with everyone in the pack, I would, Stiles,” Derek tells him quietly. “But to do this to an actual _werewolf_ would pretty much knock them out of the game. Cutting our pack bonds like this...to us, it feels like dying. But since humans can’t sense them…” he shrugs helplessly. “If Lydia’s theory is true, and the Moth Witch _can_ trace pack bonds, it’s the only way to keep you totally safe. Otherwise, she’d go after you.”

“Yeah.” _As the weakest link._ Stiles sags onto the coffee table. It’s a mark of how bad Derek must feel about all this that he doesn’t even glare at him for it. 

Scott comes to sit on the sofa across from him, but he’s again careful that they don’t touch. “It’s just for a month or so, dude,” he says awkwardly. “You heard Deaton’s theory—whatever goes down, she’ll probably move on by then. We’ll see you at school. We’ll text you, like, _all_ the time. We can even Skype every day. You’ll be completely sick of us, I promise.”

Stiles plucks lint from his pants. “Yeah, okay,” he mutters.

They mill about aimlessly for a while, just waiting for Deaton to show. It’s _bright_ in here, probably because the sun’s reflecting from the windows of the buildings opposite. It’s the kind of day they’d normally spend outside, maybe at the preserve even. A day that makes it feel like school’s actually over, and summer’s finally here. A day full of promise.

Derek puts in a pizza order, and as Stiles gleefully steals a third slice over Erica and Issac’s good-natured protests, he tries really hard not to think about the fact that this is the last time for who knows how long that he’ll get to do this. Two weeks or more, if things go south.

He wishes they could all pretend not to hear the knock on the door, but Boyd gets up to let Deaton in. “Alright,” the druid says, doing that little half-smile thing with his mouth. “Where are we doing this?”

They end up on the floor. Not because no one wants to clear the pizza boxes and plates off the table (though that’s true for sure), but because Erica thinks they “shouldn’t put any weird magic vibes where we eat our food.”

It’s a complex ritual, according to Deaton, but the foundations are simple enough. Derek and Stiles are the focal points, Derek being the Alpha and Stiles basically being the survivor who’s been voted off the island. So they sit cross-legged facing each other. Deaton’s chalked an intricate sigil on the floor between them. There are also some candles, a ring of weird white dust, and a bowl of some tar-like gunk Stiles definitely never wants to see again. Druidic magic stinks—literally. 

“The rest of you should be sitting down,” Deaton tells them when it’s all done. “Normally, when a packmate’s bond disappears, it happens slowly over a period of weeks or months, which gives you a chance to get used to it. This ritual severs the bond instantly—and it may be quite a blow.”

“Will it hurt them?” Stiles wonders aloud as the others all make their way over to the sofas.

Deaton shakes his head. “It will feel like being in medical shock for about an hour, more or less. You’ll need to do the regular scent marking among yourselves, and it will help to stay close together. But the effects shouldn’t linger for long. It might not be as bad for Lydia as a banshee, though my guess is she’ll suffer the effects as well.” He turns back to the two of them. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” Stiles confirms, with much more confidence than he feels. Derek says nothing. They both ignore the rest of the betas clustered across the sofas or on the floor nearby, their expressions a spectrum from wary to worried.

“You’ll need to hold hands.”

Stiles pauses, and then scoots as close as he can to the sigil without disturbing the chalk dust. He gingerly reaches his hands out, palms up, and Derek takes them without hesitation. The comforting weight of his hands makes something flutter in Stiles’s chest.

“Stiles,” Derek murmurs, “your heart’s beating too fast. Calm down.”

“Dude, I’m _trying_.” 

Derek gives him a look, but it’s tinged with amusement in spite of the situation. Stiles feels the corners of his mouth twitch upward. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Calm.” Deaton’s flipping through the spellbook for the right page, and a thought occurs to Stiles. “Hey, will _you_ be okay? Being the Alpha, and all that.”

“The symptoms are the same for me,” Derek replies awkwardly. “Just a little discomfort for a while. No big deal.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, feeling a little cold. “Good.”

“Alright,” Deaton says from above. “Now, I’ll begin the ritual chant. It’s repeated a few times, during which you, Derek, will need to focus on your bond with Stiles. You need to really feel it, and single it out from the others, for this to work.”

Derek nods solemnly, and Deaton begins without another word.

It feels too sudden for Stiles. Too fast for him to get used to the idea of going solo, like he hasn’t already had hours upon sleepless hours to get used to it. He doesn’t _want_ this, human or not—this is his pack now, after all. And now that he knows what it’s like, having a pack, how’s he supposed to go back to being... _alone_ , or whatever he was before? 

But there’s more to it than that, he realizes as he watches Derek. The werewolf has closed his eyes, obediently seeking out the very bond that Deaton is working to break. Stiles understands where all this is coming from, that this isn’t a punishment. But at the same time...it’s just that a part of him wishes Derek had put up more of a fight. That it was going to hurt Derek, to make him feel _something,_ to have Stiles forcibly removed from his pack.

That’s wishful thinking, though. Derek has never given him so much as a suggestion that he thinks of Stiles in that way, in the way Stiles half-wishes he would. And the answer to that question looks super bleak at the moment, what with the whole green light pouring off of the sigil between them, and the candle flames brimming over as Derek allows Stiles to be carved from his side.

When at last Deaton stops speaking, the light fades away, leaving only the glimmer from the reflected sun behind them. Derek’s hands are heavy. His eyes are still closed.

Stiles looks up at Deaton, who nods. “Are you okay?” Stiles whispers to Derek, not knowing why he feels he has to be quiet.

Derek opens his eyes, coughs once, and removes a hand to rub his chest. “Oh. Wow.”

The others stare back at him, glassy-eyed and dazed. Deaton walks over to them, saying something in a low voice, but Stiles turns back to Derek, an odd feeling settling over him, like a heavy weight sinking down bit by bit.

It feels like something’s broken. Something incredibly fragile. A tree chopped to the last inch of its trunk, in danger of falling over. _Oh,_ he realizes. _So maybe_ that’s _where the bond was hiding._

When he looks at Derek, at the werewolf’s stunned expression, it suddenly feels like someone’s taken a sledgehammer to his skull, and Derek’s hands are suddenly _searing_ his skin. He rips his hand away, and clutches his head, doubling over as if the blow had been a physical one. Taking a deep breath only makes it worse, like he’s inhaled a lungful of smog. 

It’s a panic attack, maybe—or maybe something else. “I...whoa. I gotta get out of here, I think,” he blurts, stumbling jerkily to his feet, hands against the sides of his head as if he’s holding two halves of it together.

Derek stares at him blearily.

“What are you talking about?” Allison asks, studying him in surprise. Where Scott struggles to stand, she’s fully alert. Unfazed. 

_The way_ _I_ _was supposed to be too,_ Stiles realizes. “It—I just can’t be here right now,” he manages. His skull is _throbbing,_ like five million times the worst hangover he’s ever had. 

“I don’t think—”

“Is this how severing’s supposed to work?” Isaac is saying dazedly.

“Please stop calling it _severing_ ,” Erica growls, sprawled across the floor with her eyes closed.

It hurts just to look at them. Stiles hurriedly grabs his backpack, which is harder than it looks, because for some reason even just looking at everyone else’s bags is enough to make a sudden surge of nausea roil in his stomach. He has to close his eyes for part of it, feeling for his Batman keychain. At last, he pulls his bag on and heads toward the door. 

Somehow, Derek gets there first. Stiles staggers backward at the sight of him, pain slamming into his skull as if Derek had physically struck him. Derek opens and closes his mouth. “You...be careful. Put this around your windows and doors, and stay safe.”

Stiles takes it, a small blue jar, and flees. He takes the stairs two at a time, desperate to be out in the open. When he reaches ground level, he struggles to take a few breaths in the parking lot. His head throbs too hard for him to even process what just happened. 

So he consciously stops thinking about it. Instead, he focuses on: _How are you getting home, dumbass, when you rode here with—?_ He swallows, trying not to think of them, of any of them.

He’s in the city center, and there’s a bus stop on the next street over. Stiles focuses on that, on putting one foot in front of the other, and the pain goes away. Suddenly, he can breathe again. It _is_ like a panic attack, slowly fading. The less he thinks about what just happened, the less his head aches.

It strikes back once he’s finally _on_ the bus, though, because he finally looks down at the little blue pot Derek shoved at him. He opens it to find mountain ash. Which makes his mind go down a rabbit hole: Derek doesn’t need mountain ash, so he must have gone out of his way to have it on hand, just in case Stiles needs it maybe, and if that’s true then what does that _mean?_

It hurts way too much to think about. He shoves the jar into his backpack’s water bottle pouch and puts it out of his mind. _It hurts when I think of any of them,_ he realizes dully. _I guess the separation ritual worked a little too well._

That thought comes a little too close to actually remembering the ritual, to feeling Derek’s hands in his, to picturing the other betas’ worried gazes. And so instead, Stiles distracts himself by looking resolutely out of the window, counting every stoplight they pass as if his life depended on it. 

When he gets home, he promptly dumps his stuff on the floor, collapses onto his bed, and sleeps for the next twelve hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never trust a ritual that wasn't updated in the last 5 years, everyone knows that.
> 
> Anyway, going forward this will be pretty Stiles-centric for a bit...like, jsyk partway through the story Stiles is gonna head off by himself away from the pack. So while Sterek is the endgame and there are hints of it in the beginning, there’s a whole 'nother middle thing that has to happen before Stiles is ready to jump back into that. If that's cool with you, read on :) Chapter 2 is coming later this week!


	2. Bad Breakup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wall of pain slams into him, and he thinks he might be whimpering like an animal. “Der—” Stiles can’t even get the full name out. He swallows. “Ugh. Can you please not?”

Stiles doesn’t think about what happened when he wakes, mostly because he’s running super late for school. It seems to take hours to drag himself from the deep mental fog that’s left him sluggish and apathetic. And by the time he finally realizes what time it is, he doesn’t have a spare second to consider anything but getting to chemistry before Mr. Harris can report him to the front office for possible truancy (again).

With only seconds to spare, he sprints into the classroom and drops into his seat. When he takes a minute to recover, panting hard, he suddenly remembers that Scott and Allison are both in this class with him, and that this is currently a really bad thing.

“Dude, how are you?” Scott says, just as the bell rings. “Last night was...pretty rough. And you didn’t answer my texts.”

At the sound of his voice, it’s as if something slams into Stiles’s head again, like someone’s smashing a tire iron into his skull. He puts his palms on his eyes and takes a few steadying breaths. “I can’t really talk right now.”

“What? Are you okay?”

“I _literally_ am in mind-blowing pain when I look at you or hear your voice, so _no_ ,” he manages. It comes out more harshly than he intends, but thinking about taking it back makes the pressure build between his eyes. “Let’s just stick to the plan,” he says through gritted teeth. “We don’t know each other anymore.”

“Yeah...okay,” Scott replies hesitantly, exchanging a glance with Allison. “Text you later, then.”

Stiles manages to nod, and thank god for Adrian Harris (something he never thought he’d say), because that man starts his classes _on time._ Never in his whole life has Stiles been so intently focused on a class, and so diligent with his notes. It’s like a balance between life and death, where all Stiles needs to do is concentrate so hard on acids and bases that he forgets Scott and Allison exist.

He sits by himself at lunch. It should be pathetic. It probably _is_ pathetic—what kind of person has _no one_ else to sit with outside of their main circle of friends? But Stiles doesn’t have time to think about that, because he’s too busy nursing his throbbing headache and determinedly not looking at the table where he used to sit. When that gets to be too much, he dumps his lunch in the trash and heads out to the bleachers. He doesn’t have much of an appetite anyway.

At the last bell, he retreats back home as fast as he can. All day, he’s dreamt of the comfort of his own bed, where he can theoretically sleep off the nausea and headache. But when he steps into his room, he again finds Derek waiting. 

He jolts backward, his shoulders hitting the wall behind him. One hand flies up to cover his eyes, like not seeing the werewolf might keep the symptoms at bay.

It doesn’t. A wall of pain slams into him anyway, and he thinks he might be whimpering like an animal. “Der—” Stiles can’t even get the full name out. He swallows. " _Ugh_. Can you please not?”

From the sound of his footsteps, Derek’s approaching rather than retreating. “Something’s wrong with you,” he says cautiously, and _No shit, Sherlock_. “Scott told me what you said this morning.”

“So you decided to come _here._ Great choice,” Stiles gripes sarcastically, holding his head like he can keep it from exploding. Derek’s moving closer still, the stupid idiot. “Go _away,_ ” he whines in frustration, covering his head. He’s pressing himself backward into the wall. “Please just go.”

Derek stops. Hesitates. “Lydia thinks it didn’t take, or something. You shouldn’t feel like this. Deaton isn’t sure—there aren’t any records of this happening, so—”

“Well, perfect, it’s just what you guys wanted. I’m definitely not coming anywhere near you, and that witch lady’s definitely not gonna smell you on me, as long as _you_ stick to your end of the deal. So how about you turn the fuck around, climb out the window, and go somewhere _not here_ to figure out what to do.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Dude,” Stiles says miserably, pressing his fragmented skull together as it slowly slips through his fingers. “It’s worse.” Derek hesitates for a long moment, during which Stiles tries to do the seven times tables in his head to keep his brain from going supernova. Through clenched teeth, he adds, “I can’t be near you right now. _Get the fuck away._ ”

“I’m...sorry.”

There’s a shuffling sound as Derek retreats, probably going through the window. Stiles waits long enough to be sure he’s gone. Then, knowing Derek can still hear him, he murmurs, “Please, please, please don’t come back.”

Cutting ties is _hard._ Stiles's phone buzzes, day and night, with messages that he doesn’t answer. The calendar on the wall of his room is marked up with places the pack was thinking about going over the summer—mostly day trips, with a concert here or there. Games borrowed from Scott and Boyd litter the floor near his Xbox, he still has that bestiary he was meant to return to Lydia, and there’s a silver bullet Allison gave him as a curiosity sitting on his dresser.

In the name of self-preservation, it's all gotta go. Stiles blasts his headphones and does his best to stay in a neutral, zoned-out “cleaning mode” (with occasional trips to the bathroom to dry heave) as he tosses it all into trash bags, which he shoves under the bed. The whole place is oddly bare after that. 

At school, Stiles can’t keep from seeing his pack (ex-pack?), or from bumping into them. Fortunately, Derek seems to have passed on the word that they have to stay away to the best of their ability.

What follows is an almost absurd level of...Stiles doesn’t know what. Hide and seek, maybe? He’ll catch a glimpse of Erica in the hall, and she’ll duck into the nearest classroom. Boyd literally _hid under the bleachers_ during half of PE. It’s hardest during actual class, but they work it out as much as they can. Like when teachers automatically pair him and Scott together for group work as usual, and Scott makes sure they switch partners. It would be enough to make Stiles super grateful—except that he’s always practically dying to think of anything else. 

Fortunately, the end of the year is upon them, and that means exams. Stiles throws himself wholeheartedly into his coursework, bringing it with him everywhere. He walks down the hall with his nose in _King Lear_ , and he reviews his calculus study guide instead of eating lunch. His teachers’ eyebrows rise in shock when he offers them his complete attention in class, volunteering answer after correct answer with only the occasional witty aside. 

After the first week, he’s pretty much trained himself not to think of the others at all. It’s like some weird reverse Pavlovian thing, where he _doesn’t_ want what’s in front of him, so he focuses on the best distractions available. He fixates on his studies at school, goes home and actually does his homework, then plays video games ad nauseum. Rinse and repeat. After the third week, it’s a habit.

The fourth week is exams. Stiles is pretty much on autopilot, and his answers have never been more fluid. He walks away from each one feeling like he _aced_ it. The results come out on the last day of school, one of those lame duck school days where nothing’s really happening except some dumb field day crap. Stiles has nothing better to do at home, and he’s basically an expert at avoiding contact with other people in general at this point. He’s managed to ditch a year-end classroom cleanup in order to hang out in the bio lab, flipping through next year’s textbook, when the door opens. He swivels on the stool to find that Mrs. Addison, the Lit teacher, has poked her head in to see him, straight dark hair falling forward like a curtain.

“Stiles? I thought that was you.”

“Oh—yeah, I was just, uh...the whole cleaning thing was—”

“Oh, no, I don’t care,” she says dismissively, bracelets clinking as she waves a hand in the air. “I just wanted to tell you I’m impressed.”

“Impressed with what?” Stiles wonders.

“Well, this isn’t to say you were _behind,_ by any means. We both know that. But your exam score went wayup. You’re almost top of the class, Stiles.”

“ _Me_ ,” Stiles says, disbelieving. He’s not stupid, for sure, but he’s never actually put in the intensive effort needed to get to the top slot.

Mrs. Addison seems amused by his surprise. “Yes, you. Well, you're just behind Lydia Martin, anyway, but you’re close.”

The sudden reminder of his pack feels like she’s just stabbed into his skull. He slaps a hand to his forehead, swallowing hard against the nausea. 

“Stiles? Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he says quickly. “Headache. Uh, thanks, Mrs. Addison.” He leaves her to stare at his back in confusion, walks into the janitor’s closet, and recites the chem lab safety rules to himself until he thinks he might not hurl what little he had for lunch into the mop bucket.

It’s impossible to go anywhere in this stupid town.

Thing is, Beacon Hills is actually pretty small. There are only so many places a teenager can go for entertainment, and the pack has hit them _all._ The Mexican joint on Pine Hill? That’s where he and Scott literally made themselves deathly ill on $2 burrito night once, and then went right back the next week (in those distant pre-werewolf days, obviously). The coffee place near the library? Derek and Lydia had cajoled him into finally trying black-for-real coffee there, and it was so bad he actually spit it back into the cup. And let’s not even _mention_ the mall or movie theater or the whole entire preserve, pretty much the only real things to see or do in Beacon Hills.

It’s like a bad breakup. (Stiles would assume, having never had anyone to break up _with._ ) Except that it’s with eight people. Or seven, really, excluding Jackson, which he only kind of does. 

These are all the things he tries and sometimes fails to _not_ think about when he gets out of the house. And then, of course _,_ he’ll see reminders of them somewhere random. One day, Lydia’s car is parked outside the hair salon on Main. The next, he runs into Isaac and Boyd in the mini-mart, ignoring their sounds of surprise as he hurriedly backs out the door. The stabbing pains in his skull take ages to go away each time, and sometimes he hyperventilates so hard he feels like he might as well be having an asthma attack.

Without reading the hundreds of texts on his phone, there’s no way of knowing if the witch has come and gone, or what the status of the whole “divide ourselves and conquer” plan is. But Stiles can’t take it anymore. In between piercing pains between his eyes, he reasons that his pack is probably working to fix this thing, whether that’s tackling the Moth Witch or diving into research on the pack bonds. But it doesn’t matter, because the thought of another day, another week, an entire summer spent looking over his shoulder like he’s being haunted—it makes Stiles wants to curl up and die. 

He has burgers waiting for his dad when he gets off shift. 

“What’s this?” The look his dad gives him is at once surprised and suspicious. He tentatively lifts the corner of a bun. “Tofu burgers?”

“ _Turkey_ burgers. From the deli. There’s fries, too.”

“Hmm.” His dad peels off his coat and drops it on a chair. He grabs a fry and chews it thoughtfully. “So...you’re in trouble, but not a _lot_ of trouble?”

Stiles quirks a smile in spite of the anxiety humming in his chest. “I didn’t actually do anything this time.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve heard that before,” his dad replies, mouth pulling into a grin as he lowers himself into the seat. “What’s going on?”

“I was wondering if it would be weird...could I go visit Aunt Bron for a while this summer?”

His dad pauses, a burger halfway to his mouth. “ _In Michigan?_ ”

“Yeah, just...you know. Haven’t seen her in ages. Or Marta.”

His dad is so surprised that he actually puts the burger down without taking a bite. “Okay. Stiles. What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” Stiles protests, already feeling the headache creeping up. “I just, you know. I want a change of pace. Convalesce in the fresh country air, and all that. People used to do it all the time, for good health. You know, in Victorian times or whatever.”

“Stiles.”

“Dad, ugh.” He raises a hand to his forehead. It’s like he’s suddenly on fire, a burning pain that radiates from his skull toward his chest. But he has to get this out. “I—I broke up with my friends,” he manages at last, wincing.

“What?” His dad is frowning, still ready for the other shoe to drop.

“Yeah, we’re just...agh, we’re fighting and, uh...” It gets a little harder to breathe, and his brain feels like it’s _dying._ He covers his face with his hands.

“Stiles—Stiles, hey.” His dad is suddenly right beside him, a light touch at his elbow. “It’s okay.” He says this in the low croon he reserves for small children, or animals, or Stiles when he’s having a panic attack. Stiles, mortified, realizes his dad probably thinks he’s going to cry. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he protests weakly.

“But you...you and Scott were gonna go places this summer. All your friends. Weren’t you?”

“Yeah, but now we’re not talking anymore. And I _really, really_ don’t want to get into it. Please.”

“But what—?” His dad cuts himself off with a sigh, then he pulls Stiles’s hands away from his face. “Okay. It’s fine. Just, uh...yeah. Let’s give her a call tonight. Haven’t talked to her since I don’t know when. Probably Christmas before last. But I guess it’s fine with me if it’s fine by her.”

Feeling a rush of relief, heady and strong, Stiles swings an arm around to give his dad a hug. “Thanks, dad,” he says, voice muffled by his father’s shoulder.

“Yeah, Stiles. Of course. And if you...change your mind, or you want to talk, or anything...”

“I know.” Stiles pulls away. There’s a prickle of tears in his eyes now, and he doesn’t know why. He clears his throat, blinking. “This is gonna be great, though,” he reassures his dad, and himself. “I’m gonna be great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not too much movement this chapter, but I wanted to show the fallout of both Stiles and the pack realizing "oh shit, this went south real fast." Because the sad thing is, they're all a bunch of dumbasses but they're at least well-meaning in their inefficiency... 
> 
> IMPORTANT: I just want to warn you now that this will NOT follow the typical "Stiles harbors an grudge and refuses to forgive the pack for wrongdoings" trope, just so you aren't disappointed later on. Stiles hates but also understands the decision to sever the bond, and he knows (but obviously can't think about due to intense pain at the moment) that his packmates didn't intend for the spell to go awry. So while he's heading off on his own, the inciting factor isn't a severe pack betrayal, and so he won't return to Beacon Hills in a fire of vengeance or fury. 
> 
> Stiles takes off for real next chapter! In the meantime, kudos and comments are love ❤️


	3. Watchful Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s gonna be pretty quiet out here, even in summer,” Bron warns, slowing to turn down the dirt road leading to the house. “As I’m sure you remember. Not much like it is back in California.”
> 
> “That’s kinda what I’m hoping for,” Stiles replies, leaning forward to see the place.

Stiles hasn’t seen his aunt or cousin since Christmas before last. But when he hits the arrivals gate of the Grand Rapids airport, he spots them right away. There’s Aunt Bron, who maybe stopped aging and became a vampire sometime around forty—she’s still got only the faintest lines around her eyes and mouth even though she’s his mom’s _older_ sister. And Marta’s her little mini-me, nine years old, with skinny limbs and hair braided neatly down her spine. 

But mostly, he spots them right away because Marta’s holding a neon green poster with his full name on it. His _actual Polish name._

He swoops in to hug her. 

“You knew it was me!” she cries happily. “I got a lot taller, so I didn’t know if you would.”

“Of course I did, dorkface. And I thought we agreed a long time ago to keep that monstrosity to ourselves,” he admonishes, dramatically pushing the poster down as if trying to keep people from seeing it.

“ _I_ don’t have a monster name,” she replies smugly, tugging it back to let him hug her mom.

Bron’s arms clamp around him and _squeeze._ He forgets how strong she is, all those hours working under the sun. “It’s been too long, Mischief.” The hug makes him feel a little more human. He’d like to think it’s just the hours of travel time that have worn him down, but something about the embrace leaves him sagging in relief. 

When she lets him go, he looks at her face and sees his mom: a dusting of moles on her cheeks, dark eyes. The brown hair is longer than his mom’s was, though, and pulled into a smart, no-nonsense ponytail.

“Yeah,” he says at last, smiling for the first time in what feels like ages. “It really has been.”

~*~

His mother’s side of the family, the Gajoses, are nominally Polish. 

Literally. They have Polish names, but otherwise that’s pretty much the extent of the Polish culture they’ve still got, especially after like three generations in the States. Sure, there are a few traditional recipes they dust off around the holidays, and some treasured Polish-language quips passed through the generations. But otherwise, none of them know much about Poland or Polish or _anything_ beyond what they see at the heritage festivals out in Grand Rapids and Detroit.

There are still some second cousins and great aunts and uncles scattered across the state, but Aunt Bron lives way out in farm country, right where the first-ever Gajoses settled. It’s the same house where his mom grew up, long before she skipped town and ditched her birth name, Czesława, for a moniker of her choice. Unlike Claudia, Aunt Bron stuck to her roots, just shortening her name from Bronisława. But she’d also been kind enough to simply name Stiles’s cousin _Marta_ instead of some unpronounceable variation.

The drive from Grand Rapids takes them just over an hour and a half, mostly through open farmland dotted with trees. The dusty little town that their homestead belongs to is barely a town at all. And it’s definitely not one of the glamorized, flowerbed-ridden small towns in travel magazines, the kind with antique shops and American flags and a main street and old people smiling on rocking chairs. It’s practical and lean, a cluster of simple brick structures and sturdy fences.

“It’s gonna be pretty quiet out here, even in summer,” Bron warns, slowing to turn down the dirt road leading to the house. “As I’m sure you remember. Not much like it is back in California.”

“That’s kinda what I’m hoping for,” Stiles replies, leaning forward to see the place. It’s half hidden in the shade of an old maple, with a bit of unkempt growth from the flower garden trailing up the pale yellow facade. The house is roughly rectangular in shape, with wide windows on the second story that face the neighbor’s wheat field across the way.

“C’mon,” Marta urges as he drags his suitcase from the trunk. “I wanna show you all the new stuff.”

The house was built as a family home way back when, and it’s pretty big for just two people. Stiles dumps his bags in one of the rooms upstairs and obediently follows her out back, where their tiny barn and paddock houses a handful of animals. There’s Marta’s new alpine goat, Emmy, as well as a new milk cow and a few new chickens. They’re growing some different vegetables this year, though it’s still nothing commercial like their neighbors—just enough to feed themselves and the animals, with maybe a little surplus for preserving or selling later. 

“Mom made some extra space for flowers,” she informs him, righting a fallen plant marker. “So I can have some daisies and stuff.” She turns to face him solemnly, regarding him with her dark eyes. “I’m really glad you’re here. All my friends left to go to sleepaway camp, so it’s just me for _forever_.”

Stiles is such a pro at not thinking of what went down with everyone in Beacon Hills that he mentally skirts around the topic without even a twinge of pain. “Well, cool. Just you and me, then.” He pauses. “Actually, what _do_ you do around here when it’s not a holiday?”

“Other than chores?” Marta grins, and it’s a little lopsided. “Since _you’re_ here, I bet mom’ll let us get some snacks.”

Aunt Bron, happy to see her nephew back and probably happier still to have a distraction and babysitter, lets them take the bikes to town for some gas station snacks. Stiles and Marta sit on the grass just down the road, filling themselves with sweets and chips and absolute garbage.

On the way back, Marta insists that they stop to climb a particular tree, which she’s practiced going up. Stiles lets her coach him all the way up as well, climbing to sit beside her so that the two of them can see a bit of the patchwork of fields and farms nearby. 

It’s glorious.

Not till much later does he realize it’s the first time in weeks that he’s gone a whole day without any pain from where the bond used to be.

~*~

Over the next few days, he learns a lot about farming. And it’s not even a commercial, full-service farm or anything, so god bless anyone living on an _actual_ farm.

There’s always something to be done: picking up corn from the feed mill for the chickens, repairing the fence the cows have broken, weeding and deer-proofing the vegetable garden, gathering eggs, milking the cows and goat. Also, they’re always cleaning up a _ton_ of crap that’s spewed literally everywhere all the time (seriously, Stiles had forgotten that chickens are pretty much always shitting). In the small field out back, they spray the apple trees for pesticides and borrow a neighbor’s no-till planter to drill soybean seeds into the ground.

Bron puts him to work by his own request. He’s up with the sunrise and down with the sunset. He’s never been busier. And given the sheer breadth of what he’s trying to distract himself from, it’s really, really working for him.

In the gaps between one chore and the next, he wanders around the place. He spent loads of summers here growing up, and despite all Marta’s shown him, nothing’s really changed. Maybe not even since the first Gajos built the house. Around the back of the barn, he can see the fading layers of paint that each generation has laid down upon the wall. He sits on the porch to read beside a banister whose wood his mom carved her initials into as a child. The crooked tree in the back still has a rattling old tire swing his grandfather once hoisted up.

And of course, when he’s ready for a real distraction, he finds Marta to do some stupid kid stuff together. They spend an entire afternoon building a castle out of Legos, or they play hide-and-seek in and outside of the house. Stiles teaches Marta how to cartwheel, which is basically the most coordinated thing he knows how to do with any competence, and Marta teaches him how to paint his nails so they look like panda bears.

The thing he loves about Marta is that she’s delightfully strange. She likes making “potions” out of leaves and twigs and random knick-knacks, or finding and eating edible wildflowers along the walk to town. She insists that they bury the dead birds and squirrels they come across, and babbles a mile a minute just like he does. 

She’s also a staunch, defiant vegan. “It’s not like it’s a problem for us,” Bron tells him in amusement. She’s bent over the home milk pasteurizer while he sweeps dust from the kitchen floor. “We’re growing soybeans this year instead of wheat—that’s all her doing. And last year, she insisted on going to this grocery store protest out in the city,” she adds with a laugh. “But does make her stand out a little around here. It’s a small town, you know. A small town in _dairy_ country. Kids will be kids, and people can be...people. Not mean, exactly. It’s just that they look at her a little funny.”

Stiles pauses in his sweeping. “She has friends, though? I thought she said so.”

“Sure, school friends. Don’t see ‘em that often, though.” She pushes off her knees to stand, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m sure she’s fine. I worry too much.” 

“She’s a little weirdo,” Stiles replies, leaning on the broom. “Like me. She’s definitely okay. Just a little...” he shrugs helplessly.

At this, his aunt hesitates. “You know, when your dad called me to have you out here, I was so glad to have you. I _am_ so glad. But he mentioned you weren’t doing too good. I know you don’t want to talk about it, he said. So just... _are_ you okay, Stiles?”

Everyone’s always asking him that, always. Today, though, he barely remembers why he wouldn’t be. It’s like he’s finally managed to build a wall around what happened. And now he can barely even remember what’s behind the wall in the first place. 

“Actually,” he says slowly, “I think I’m perfect.”

~*~

There really isn’t much to do in the country, so they basically _make_ things to do. One day about two weeks in, he and Marta bring home four huge watermelons and eat them all the way to the rind, just to see if they can. On a weekend when she’s done with her remote work, Bron drives them over to Silver Lake for some beach time, and to watch people race off-road vehicles in the dunes. They take Stiles horseback riding, once, and they all agree that’s more than enough. 

Two weeks become three. Three weeks become four. Aunt Bron tells him to just stay for the summer.

He takes up jogging _._ Which would normally be insane to him back in Beacon Hills—but hey, there are no video games here, and nothing else to do. Here, it’s a good way to spend some time out in the countryside, beating a track up and down the empty dirt roads. Sometimes, it’s like he’s a complete stranger even to himself. Like here in this place, he’s become a different person: Mischief, not Stiles.

The daily calls from his dad remind him of home, though. Stiles misses him something awful, chastising him about cleaning the for-sure dirty house and texting Parrish to make sure his dad eats at least one vegetable for lunch. 

“Scott’s been asking about you,” his dad tells him one day, hesitant. “A lot _._ He says you haven’t answered any of his texts, or your other friends’. He wanted a number to call you at.”

“That would be because I blocked all of their numbers,” Stiles groans into the phone, feeling his chest grow tight and his head start throbbing. “So…”

There’s a long pause on the other end. “Okay,” his dad says simply. “One day, you’re gonna tell me what they did to you. But until then, I’ll make sure he doesn’t hear anything from _me._ If you’re sure you don’t want to hear from them.”

“That would be the actual worst,” Stiles agrees, and then he takes a long minute to steady himself, to let the pressure drain away. It doesn’t go completely, but when he grits his teeth he finds he can talk again. “Have you told them where I am?”

“No, just that you’re with family.”

“Great, can you...please don’t say anything else. Seriously.”

“Will do,” his dad says, and then he allows Stiles to make excuses and hang up the phone.

Stiles goes upstairs to his room and closes the door behind him, leaning against it like he can keep everything in the world at bay. He has the odd feeling of being watched, like he’s on a film set or something. He feels sick, and tired, and he closes the shutters on the window and curls into a ball on his bed.

~*~

He misses the woods. It’s a weird thing to miss, probably. And it’s weird just how _much_ he misses them. It’s something in the landscape, or maybe the birdsong. Or maybe it’s that the trees used to hem sounds in, making you feel insulated. Protected. 

Out here, everything’s open wide. The closest thing to a forest is the neighbor’s corn field, which stretches in an L shape around the side and back of the paddock. The leaves rattle in the wind and cast long shadows in the evenings. It makes him feel spooked, sometimes—like he’ll look over his shoulder and find someone standing there. 

“It’s very _Signs_ -y out here,” Stiles complains over breakfast. There’s fresh strawberry jam on toast, and eggs Marta’s just grabbed for them from the incubator in the pantry.

Marta wipes crumbs from her mouth. “What kinds of signs?”

“No, just...I don’t know. Creepy. With the cornfield.”

Marta and Bron look at each other and shrug, identical bemused smiles spreading over mole-speckled cheeks.

One thing he _does_ like, though: the sky. There’s nowhere in all of Beacon Hills where you can see so much of it all at once. There, it’s all forest and houses and buildings. Here, if you bike to the right place, it’s low-growing crops as far as the eye can see, with the occasional trees and houses way off in the distance.

He sits himself at a dusty crossroads one day, lying on the grass on the roadside to stare up at the shifting clouds. It’s so calm he could die.

Much later, he becomes aware again of that feeling of being watched. But when he pulls his head up to look, it’s just Marta. She’s wearing a swimsuit cover-up and a frown.

“Is this where you’ve been? I’ve been looking for you _forever._ The Hensons are on vacation, so I wanna jump their fence to use their pool. Are you coming?”

“Yep,” Stiles replies, but he drops his head back onto the grass to stare up at the sky.

Marta follows his gaze. Sighs. “You’re really weird, Mischief,” she tells him, but she folds up her skinny legs to sit beside him.

~*~

Even though it sometimes feels like someone ripped this place out a meditation poster or a peaceful desktop background, Stiles is beginning to suspect that he’s not as off the grid as he thought.

The feeling of being watched only grows over the next few days. He’s carefully not thinking about Beacon Hills, or anyone he knows who might have somehow followed him out here. Or a certain someone who’s supposedly stalking groups like the one he’d belonged to. 

What he _does_ think about, though, are all the other dark things he knows of. Things that go bump in the night. Things he used to research and run from and help fight off.

There are no trees to hide behind out here, but even so, he spins around in the middle of the back field, in broad daylight, with the sense that someone’s hidden. In the early evening as he closes one of the cows in the paddock, it’s like there’s someone hovering nearby, just at his back—only no one’s around. And then later, as he watches the stars begin to appear in a sky of deepening purple, it occurs to him that he could vanish completely out here and no one would ever know what became of him. His dad and his—his _people_ from Beacon Hills—they’d never find him. 

He’s brought the jar of mountain ash with him, only because he forgot that he shoved it into the side pocket of his backpack. It doesn’t hurt so much to think about using it this time, as long as he stops just short of dwelling on where it came from. He puts down a line of mountain ash at the window and door of his room, and then, more hesitantly, at the front door of the house.

There’s only a handful of mountain ash in the jar, not enough to place and keep lines at the other points of entry. If there _is_ someone actually out there, someone unfriendly, he hopes it’s stalking just him. Because if it’s watching Marta and Bron, too…

Stiles goes to bed that night worried. In the quiet of the dark country night, tangled in his bedsheets, he feels more alone than he has in a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hi i know nothing about farms but i did milk a cow once so)
> 
> Anyway this is kind of an in-between chapter to set up the situation. Things get a little more interesting next time :)


	4. A Gathering of Moths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dainty chain around her neck holds a single moth wing, preserved in something clear and glossy that catches the gold from the light over the barn door. The eye pattern seems to wink at him. Stiles sucks in a breath, and her smile widens.

It’s not fair. And maybe that’s why, two days later, Stiles sneaks out of the house to meet whatever’s stalking him.

 _If_ something’s stalking him. 

Because there’s no way to tell for sure. It’s not like Stiles has actually seen anything. It’s more of a weird feeling. A presence. A sixth sense, honed by months of running with a pack of trouble magnets (himself included).

There’s not much research he can do on it, since he hadn’t exactly thought to bring a bestiary and he doesn’t even _know_ what keywords he’d even type into Google. But if something’s coming for him, it’s not fair to Bron and Marta that it’s followed him out here. It’s not fair of him to wait for it to attack, making his family more vulnerable. (It’s not fair that he has to deal with this all alone, but there’s nothing he can do about that part.)

_They say the Moth Witch can’t be seen or heard. No matter how good your vision, or your sense of smell, she might as well be a ghost. They say you’d never know if she was right beside you._

He tries not to think about that, though. Most likely, he’s just being stupid. The ebbing pain of the severed pack bond is reason enough why she’d never come out here, not for a puny human.

The house feels empty and quiet at night. There’s an occasional sound of settling wood from somewhere down the hall, and he can hear the porch wind-chimes from his bed. A night bird warbles in the tree outside. He waits until he’s sure Bron and Marta are asleep, and then he throws off his blankets and climbs to his feet.

The easiest way to sneak out of the house without waking anyone is to climb out the window. Otherwise, the stairs squeak something awful, and there’s a chance Bron would come downstairs to see if he needed company, or Marta would beg for a midnight snack. Not to mention the rattle of the screen door on the porch. So Stiles clambers onto the roof and shimmies down the side of the pipe, flailing only a little and in a mostly silent way.

He’s careful not to wake the chickens as he creeps through the open yard, and the cows moo sleepily at him as he creeps into the barn. There’s no good place to do this, but the barn seems like the best worst option. It’s close enough to shout for help (though he’s got his cell to call the house, if he needs) but concealed from view of the windows if either of his relatives happen to peek out on the way to the bathroom or something. And it doesn’t hurt that he feels calm here, surrounded by Minnie and the rest of the cows, plus Emmy passed out in the hay.

Stiles pulls the mountain ash out of his pocket, having swept as much as possible from the existing lines back into the pot. At this point, alone and defenseless, he’s got to preserve the few tricks he has. Presently, he rings the dust around himself and sits cross-legged in the center of it. Then he waits.

The thing is, Stiles always underestimates how hard waiting is. He’s current on his Adderall, but that doesn’t stop his attention from wandering in the darkened space. At first, it’s just flinches at every tiny creak of wood, or the soft snuffling sounds the cows make in their sleep. But then, he mostly wishes he’d thought to bring a pillow or blanket if he’s going to sit out here for hours like an idiot. 

As he sits there debating going back to the house—shimmying back up to his window is going to be hard enough once, let alone twice—a curtain of darkness sweeps silently beside him. He jumps and turns to look at it, finding that it’s not a curtain but skirts. 

A woman stares down at him with piercing eyes, her wispy pale hair piled into a loose bun atop her head. There are fine wrinkles that crack along the skin of her face and neck, but in spite of the mark of age she stands ramrod straight, head held high. Her hands are hidden in the fabric of her clothes. She smiles politely, but there’s something sharp about it.

A dainty chain around her neck holds a single moth wing, preserved in something clear and glossy that catches the gold from the light over the barn door. The eye pattern seems to wink at him. Stiles sucks in a breath, and her smile widens.

She pulls her skirts around her, somehow managing to match his seated position with enviable grace. And the stories are right: darkness seems to gather around her like mist, and Stiles can’t hear a single hint of sound from her movements. It’s as if she’s a muted program on TV.

“Good evening,” she tells Stiles, though he half-expected for her mouth to move and no sound to reach his ears. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Stilinski. Or do you prefer Mischief?”

Stiles opens his mouth. His heart is pounding. “Holy shit. You’re real.” When his words catch up to his racing mind, he adds, “Right? Who are you?”

“You know the answer already, don’t you? I’ve been watching you, and it seemed like you were preparing for a meeting. I thought it might be a meeting for me.” The Moth Witch tilts her head. “Or did you mean to lure me out for a fight?”

“To—fight? Why would I fight you? I didn’t even know you were _real._ Or at least I hoped not,” he adds fervently. “Uh, no offense.”

“I’ve heard that before.” She catches him staring at the moth eye necklace, and one hand lifts to touch it. “For protection, should it be necessary.”

“From... _me_?” The idea seems absurd. She smiles at this, but Stiles has the uncanny sense that he should feel threatened anyway. _T_ _his woman is dangerous,_ something tells him. _More than she’s letting on._ “How did you even find me?” he asks abruptly. “Or...wait, _were_ you looking for me? The whole point was to get rid of the pack bonds.” Even as his head throbs, a cold and terrible fear settles over him. “You did something to the pack,” he guesses. “You hurt them.”

“Your pack is fine,” the witch tells him dismissively, waving a graceful hand. “But I _am_ here because of the pack bonds. I found it curious that your pack would send you away you once they learned I was coming. Seems suspicious, wouldn’t you agree? And so I had a colleague use magic to track you through the bond, and we found something interesting.” She lifts an eyebrow at him. “Apparently, it wasn’t completely severed. Most likely because your magic is hanging onto it.”

There’s way too much to unpack there, and Stiles fumbles for a minute. “Why is that suspicious? They’re trying to protect me. Everyone’s heard of—the things you do. And I don’t _have_ magic.” 

“ _Please,_ Mr. Stilinski.”

Another wash of fear. “If you’re letting me see you, are you going to take someone?Bron, or Marta? They say…” he stops, unable to finish.

“That remains to be seen. If you’re amenable, I’d like to know more about your magic.”

“Are you serious? If that’s why you’re here, I’m _telling_ you that you have the wrong guy. You can just go back wherever you came from, and I swear I won’t tell anyone I saw you, and we can both live long and happy lives—” 

“Don’t try to fool me, Mr. Stilinski,” she replies, and for the first time her face deepens into a frown. “I _know._ ”

“Look, lady, I don’t know who gave you the false intel, but I’m literally the token pack human who can barely keep himself alive without help. If I had magic, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now.” He winces, cradling his head in his hands. “They only cut me out so I wouldn’t get in the way and fuck up their plans.”

The witch studies him for a long moment. Her expression slowly softens. “Ah. I see now. You truly don’t know. That...changes things.” She looks down, and he follows her gaze to the ring of mountain ash. “You can, however, lay down a protective circle. I don’t suppose you’d mind demonstrating?”

“I’m not going to move it for you, just so you can get in,” he snarks. Of course, he isn’t saying what they both probably know: if she really wants to, she can simply wait. Or she can drag his family out of the house, kicking and screaming, and he’ll do whatever she says. 

“Smart,” she replies, unperturbed. “Well, let’s start with the mountain ash. What exactly do you believe you’re doing with it, if not magic?”

“That’s nothing. Deaton told me I had a spark once, but that’s it. It’s just a small thing, some ‘believe in yourself’ kind of shit.”

She stills. “I see. Belief-based magic.” 

The reaction, and her piercing gaze, leaves him feeling uncertain. He can’t tell whether his spark is helpful or not, whether he can use it in his favor as a bargaining chip, whether she’s still going to gut him like a fish. “Is that a good thing?”

The witch hums, shifting in place. “It’s... _low_ on the spectrum of powerful or desirable magical talents, to be sure. And limited in its uses. It’s less ritualistic, more wild and unpredictable, which makes it difficult to harness effectively, even for the wielder himself. But for all that, it’s also an extraordinarily rare and unique talent. There are some magics that can only be done by sparks, after all.” She pauses, then reaches behind her to dig through a small leather bag Stiles hadn’t even noticed before, her arm sinking so impossibly far that he thinks it must be made of magic. At last she pulls out an old-fashioned pocket watch, holding it in the palm of her hand. Unable to help himself, Stiles leans in a little to see the inlaid bronze glimmer along the edge of its face. Its hands don’t move.

“For example, a spark’s magic can fill and control certain vessels designed specifically for their use, based on certain substances used in the creation—mountain ash being the foremost example, as well as rowan oak. This type of craftsmanship is slowly dying out, and the last tools are relics, widely desired.” She looks back up at him. “Even so, they’re not as rare as sparks themselves.”

Stiles takes a moment to digest the impromptu lecture. “And that’s one of them. The tools, I mean. Vessels.”

“This is one,” she confirms. “When I came tonight, I thought you might have designed a plan to attack me, or to bargain with me. Now, though, I see that you’ve simply been left in the dark. So I’ll make a deal with you, Mr. Stilinski, because I’m curious: I’ll leave you and your family alone if you can, after some practice, demonstrate your ability as a spark. Using this.”

Instantly shaking his head, Stiles frowns. “But I can’t _do_ anything beyond the mountain ash, and—and that’s bullshit anyway. For two reasons. First, because I have no reason to believe you _will_ leave me and my family alone, and everything I’ve heard about you suggests you probably won’t. And then second...there’s more to it than that. For you, there’s no value in knowing whether I’m magic or not if you’re just going to walk away and leave me alone. You don’t get anything out of it. Why even bother?”

“I’m offended,” she says, but she laughs as if the answer pleases her. “You don’t believe that I simply want to satisfy my own curiosity?”

“No,” he replies mulishly, thrown a little off-balance.

“Really, you mustn’t believe every story you hear. Alright, you’re correct. I don’t plan to harm you or your family. The truth is this: I _am_ the cause of a great many disappearances—but I’m not here to make people disappear needlessly. Just the dangerous ones. People who kill and maul those who can’t defend themselves, who deal in death and darkness.”

Stiles grimaces. “So you’re, what, a supernatural version of a hunter? Like, one that does all the things, not just werewolves?”

She inclines her head. “I’m aware of the rumors about me, and I use them to my advantage, meaning that I only let myself be seen if I know it’s necessary, if someone will need to be dealt with appropriately. Or in special cases, like this one, where a little face-to-face conversation is needed to help me understand. Sparks aren’t dangerous by default, but you _can_ be useful. And I’m guessing you will be powerful, as far as sparks go, at least. You simply need training. And if I happen to provide such training, perhaps you might return the favor in the future, should I need a little rare magic.”

Her face is open and pleasant, but that doesn’t make it readable. Stiles doesn’t know what she’s thinking, or whether he believes her—especially given the rumors. Could they really all be a cover, a way of protecting herself as she hunts the people who deserve it? Can he trust her to keep her word?

In the end, though, he’s powerfully curious—and there may be no better way to learn than the offer before him. “I’m not doing any weird favors,” he warns.

“I wouldn’t expect you to. It would be completely optional.”

“And if I try, and I’m really _not_ magic? I’m just human? What happens then?”

She gives him a tolerant smile. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Does this mean you’ll agree to try?”

Stiles sighs. If he weren’t alone in this, if he had someone watching his back, maybe he’d choose differently. Maybe he’d have someone to shout advice at him. Derek (and the thought of him makes Stiles cringe as fiery fingers poke into his skull)...Derek would be furious with him. 

But Derek isn’t here.

“I’ll try _._ No promises. Nonbinding future favors are optional. No one hurts my family. Or my friends.”

“Of course.” The Moth Witch favors him with the same polite smile, then turns to dig into her bag. She comes up with a thin suede-bound book. “I don’t personally know much at all about the magic of sparks, but this might help you figure things out.” 

She passes over the book, and then the pocket watch, and he stares curiously down at them both until it occurs to him that she’s _crossed the line of mountain ash._ From what Deaton’s told him in the past, this stuff should keep out all but the most powerful of witches. It takes intense magic to disregard a barrier like that, and she’s barely batted an eye.

By the time he jerks his head up to look at her, the witch is climbing to her feet, the movement still completely silent. She folds her hands carefully over her waist. “Let it be known that I’m very invested in how this pans out,” she tells him, smiling, and then she disappears into the shadows.

~*~

Stiles has no concrete reason to trust some random witch’s sincerity. Especially one as creepy as the Moth Witch, and _especially_ based on all he knows of her. She could 100% be lying to him. And she’s more dangerous than he thought, considering how easily she crossed his mountain ash barrier. 

Except that she hadn’t hurt him, even though she easily could have. Crossing the barrier could have simply been—what, a demonstration of her power? An attempt to prove that he can trust her not to hurt him? And besides, she reminds him somehow of his Great-Aunt Agnieska, a woman he barely remembers except for the little bowls of krówkis she kept on her tables when he visited this place in the summers.

And he’s curious. Powerfully so. 

Once he very awkwardly manages to climb back into his room, he finds the book to be handwritten in looping cursive, a neat little primer on what he can do—or at least what he might one day be able to do. But most of it is beyond Stiles, only because the writer seems to assume that he, the reader, has far more knowledge of magic than he actually does. _Beyond the eight accepted branches of power is the magic of sparks, a minor magic which overlaps them at a basal level,_ it reads. Further on, there’s stuff like _Focus is the key to this type of work, though magical grafting can be harnessed as an additional aid._

It’s a lot to take in, and as the words blur on the page Stiles suddenly feels very weary. _I’m just a dumb kid who didn’t even know he might be magic,_ Stiles thinks, flipping the pages. _Where’s the sparknotes version?_

Still, he spends a long time staring at the pocket watch, willing the hands of it to move. All he manages to do is give himself a headache almost as bad as the ones he gets from his severed pack bond. When the first light of dawn filters into his windows, he hides it in his nightstand and sets out to start his chores. Even so, the book and watch remain on his mind the entire day, burning a hole in his thoughts. A growing obsession, not unlike the research rabbit-holes he often falls into at school, only worse because the subject is his actual life. 

Bron doesn’t really notice his distraction or fatigue, busy with work as she’s been over the past few days. She spends part of her day doing some kind of freelance financial planning, and she’s recently been lost in preparation for a new client.

Marta, on the other hand, quickly catches Stiles’s thoughtful, quiet mood. She’s stubborn about it, too, clinging to his side until he finally shoos her away. The barrier between host and house-guest—or between cousins—has begun to wear away, leaving them more like siblings. More and more often, they have learned to grate on each others’ nerves.

Over the next day or so, she quickly sleuths out what’s holding his attention, likely because Stiles hasn’t thought to hide the book and watch beside stuffing it into a drawer when he isn’t poring over them. And so he catches her one afternoon sprawled out across his bed, legs propped up on his headboard as she flips through the pages of the book.

Stiles swipes it from her hands. “What are you doing, going through my shit?”

“I just wanted to read it!” she says hotly, flipping onto her stomach. Her long brown hair is falling out of its messy ponytail. 

“You can’t come here and go through my drawers, Marta,” he growls, pulling her off the bed. “It’s not your stuff.”

“Why are you hiding it? You keep coming in here to look at it, and it’s stupid.”

“It’s not _stupid,_ it’s—”

“We’ve been making potions together all summer!” she protests. “I want to be a witch, too. I can do spells! It’s not fair.” 

Her face is pink with anger, shoulders tensed as if preparing for a fight. Stiles deflates, looking down at the book. Of course she’d see it that way, think it was no different from the silly games they’ve been playing together. “Look—fine. Whatever. But no more going through my things,” he adds firmly, resolving to hide the pot of mountain ash a little better. “Especially if I’m not here.”

“Deal.”

Together, they sit cross-legged on Stiles’s bed, the watch between them, as Marta slowly tries to decipher the passages in the book. Stiles wonders what he can possibly say if the spell actually _works,_ but it never comes to that. As predicted, the spellwork with Marta at his side goes no better than it’s been going on his own. The clock hands never move.

Marta watches Stiles grow more and more gloomy, and at last she throws the book behind her onto the floor. “This is stupid. Let’s go ride bikes.”

Stiles can’t really argue with that logic, and he’s grateful that she’s dragging him out for a break. Besides, the Moth Witch has given him no timeline to work from. Even so, the watch weighs on his mind as heavily as though she has.

~*~

For the first time in a long time, he thinks about calling for help from—well, _someone_ in the pack. He’s halfway down the ladder from the roof, and he’s just got enough presence of mind to abort that thought before the pain comes, but enough of it floods into his head that he topples down the last few rungs.

It’s been a while since that happened, since he accidentally thought of the pack before he could catch himself. And it’s probably only happened because Stiles feels so goddamn helpless about all this, and in a way he hasn’t felt before, even considering his normal uselessness as a fragile human in a werewolf pack. 

He misses them, he thinks miserably, lying on the grass under the warm sun, and the pain is terrible, but for once he grits his teeth. Over the burning knife stabbing into his skull, he thinks that Lydia would have been great at helping him figure out whatever the fuck’s wrong with him. He wishes Scott could tell him it’ll be okay, even if he’s definitely lying. Erica and even Isaac would distract him with dumb jokes. 

Derek would’ve done that moody glower he always did when someone was hurt and it wasn’t yet under control. Derek would’ve been crawling through Stiles’s window at night to make sure he was okay, and he would have sat outside the house while Stiles slept, even after Stiles whispered to him to _go the fuck home, Derek._

Stiles wishes for the millionth time that the goddamn bond would just _heal_ already. And then he clears his mind as best he can, breathing hard for a few minutes to wait for the pain to go away.

“No sleeping on the job,” Marta tells him cheerfully as she walks past with the chicken feed.

~*~

The mountain ash is useless, obviously. The witch has gotten past it. But Stiles doesn’t think it’s defective, and he’s more curious about it now than ever, about her mention of it as a tool for sparks. It’s his only real lead, and the only thing that’s ever worked for him in the past.

And so that evening, he pulls the pot down from the back corner of his closet and pours it onto the floor of his room, shutting the door to the hallway. Mountain ash circles are useful for protection, but what else can he do with it? 

_Focus is the key to this type of work._ It’s hard but he gets there eventually: slowly, he manages to line the powder into the shape of a star, pulling and pushing it across his floorboards. He’s sweating with the effort of it when he’s done, but he doesn’t let up. Next is a heart, a diamond, a crescent moon. It comes easier and easier, bit by bit, until it takes him only a half-minute to rearrange the next pattern. A snake, a cloud, a lopsided attempt at a poo emoji.

He’s lounging on his bed, in the middle of drawing a dick in the ash, when he becomes aware of someone at his side.

“I thought you were going to work on it,” the Moth Witch says, scowling at the floor. Stiles has jumped off of the bed, breathing hard. “The _watch._ ”

“I—I was.”

“Not the mountain ash. We’ve established that you can work with that. Or do you not want to uphold your end of the bargain?”

“I _tried_ with the watch,” he protests. “Over and over. It’s not working.”

The witch looks unimpressed. “Your magic is belief-based,” she reminds him flatly. “You can do it if you believe you can.”

“That’s obviously not true, and I’m living proof.”

“Mr. Stilinski, it most assuredly _is,_ ” she says, her voice growing fervent. “I know you can do even what appears to be impossible if you believe you can.”

“Okay look, first off, please call me Stiles, because it’s getting weird and I think we’re close enough frenemies to make it work. Second, you said that I would have to be a powerful spark to move it. But maybe I’m _not._ Deaton didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. Neither did—” he cringes, gritting his teeth. “Neither did Derek, my alpha. Neither did anyone else in my pack. So what if I’m just an average-Joe spark? A basic bitch spark?”

“That would be unfortunate.”

“‘Kill me and my family in our sleep’ unfortunate?”

“I told you I’m not doing that,” she reminds him exasperatedly, gliding gracefully across the floor to lean against the wall.

“Well, forgive me if I have a hard time believing the lady who just appeared out of fucking nowhere at my side.”

He wonders if it’s cool to swear in front of someone who’s old enough to be his grandma, but the witch hardly seems to notice. “Maybe it’s time you forgot what your pack told you about your magic,” she says slowly, coming to stand in front of him. “Maybe you need to decide for yourself what you can and can’t do.”

Stiles frowns. “Or maybe my nature determines what I can and can’t do. _As a human._ ”

“Your nature determines _nothing_.” Her voice grows firm, and it’s almost a snarl, coming from her. “We’re not so different, you and I. Once, my family of choice was a coven of vampires. It was before I came into my...abilities, and so the arrangement was difficult, as I’m sure you’ve experienced with your own pack. Being defenseless, you’re required to call on others to defend you. By extension, I always felt weaker, lesser.”

Stiles’s head is throbbing again, but he tries not to think about all the times he’s had to call the pack for help, or gotten designated “the researcher” and shut out of the real action. He breathes in and out, slowly. “Okay, sounding pretty familiar, yeah.”

“Well. It took me a hard lesson to learn the truth: _I_ wasn’t holding my coven back. It was the other way around. They shielded me from harm, and that prevented me from growing. And then, eventually, they betrayed me.”

“Oh,” he says awkwardly. He opens his mouth to say _That’s not exactly the same,_ but it seems pretty heartless. And anyway, he’s not sure it’s true. “Okay, I see the similarity. What...what did you do?”

“I made sure they paid for it. And I consumed every bit of magic I could lay my hands on, so no one could ever dictate what I could and couldn’t do again. You can do the same, if you try,” she adds, and her eyes drift down to the dick on the floor.

“I can’t just magically make this happen,” Stiles tells her, arms flailing. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She hums. “You have to find a way to believe in it. To believe in _you_. You’ve done magic before, at least once, I believe. Your pack cut you apart from them, which should have worked. You didn’t want it to, or rather you didn’t really want to _believe_ it would, and so it didn’t.”

“You mentioned that before,” he says slowly. “But I don’t think I could have done that. I didn’t know how _._ I still don’t.”

“As a spark, there’s more to your magic than you consciously know. It’s your job now to make it conscious. You need to understand what you can do.”

He sighs, frustrated. “But how do I do that? How did _you_ learn magic? How does anyone?”

At this, she smiles, and it’s the same sharp smile she’d greeted him with before. “That part is up to you, Stiles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooo, have a double chapter update thanks to all the spare time I suddenly have with the coronavirus shutdown. Hope y'all are staying healthy out there!
> 
> Also, I'm cementing my outline at 8 chapters, so we're halfway through! Let me know what you think of Bron and Marta (and our spooky witch)...


	5. Handcrafted Spells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles shrugs and lets Marta lead him out into the backyard. She grabs a glass jar on the way out and then pauses, squinting suspiciously at him. “You’re not gonna laugh?”
> 
> “Dude, you just watched me try to make the hands of a clock move with the power of my mind."

Much later, Stiles is trying to suffocate himself with his own pillow when Marta finds him. 

“Is this about the spells?” she asks. He drags the pillow from his face and watches her pick up the witch’s guidebook, which he’s been flipping through in vain for the past hour. “It’s a big deal, isn’t it?”

Stiles groans. “Yeah, kind of.”

She nods solemnly, running her fingers along the weathered pages, then shuts it and tosses it back on the mattress. “It’s okay, Mischief. Sometimes, I want my spells to work too, right away, but they just...don’t. You have to make the spell happen in real life. You work until it does.”

He closes his eyes. “Jeez. What are you even talking about?”

Marta shrugs. “I make up my own spells too, like with the potions. They’re different.”

“Okay. Great.”

“Don’t you want to see one?”

Stiles turns on his side to see her. He hums. “That’s how you do it? You keep practicing a spell until it comes to life?”

“I try to.”

“Do they ever work?”

“I dunno. Kind of,” she says hesitantly. “Do you want to see?”

Stiles shrugs and lets her lead him out into the backyard. Marta grabs a glass jar on the way out and then pauses, squinting suspiciously at him. “You’re not gonna laugh?”

“Dude, you just watched me try to make the hands of a clock move with the power of my mind. And we’ve been collecting stuff for your potions all summer.”

This seems to ease her mind. “Okay. It’s a lot of work. Help me with this.”

They gather some herbs from Marta’s side of the garden plot: lavender, lemongrass, thyme. “What are these for?” Stiles asks, pulling little rosemary leaves off the woody branch in the corner. 

“To smell good. Duh. Is there anything you want, Mischief?”

“Won’t it, like...mess up the spell? To have something else added to it?” 

Marta shrugs. “It’s not about what _has_ to be in it. I didn’t write anything down. You can do whatever you want. Plus, this time it’s not gonna be my spell, it’ll be _our_ spell.”

“Ok,” he says, ready to play into the idea. There’s something about spending time with a kid who still honestly believes in magic, without ever having seen it, that makes him more willing to believe too. It takes him back to when everything seemed magical, just by virtue of being new—when he didn’t know the limitations of life, so he thought there simply weren’t any. “No sage?” he asks.

Marta straightens and wrinkles her nose. “Everyone burns sage now. It’s too trendy.”

“Gotcha. Now what?”

Carefully tucking the little sprigs of herbs into the jar, Marta walks him around the house toward the neighbors’ yard. In a few neglected patches near the roadside, wildflowers grow. Marta names them as they pick some: coneflower, spiderwort, buttercups.

“How come these?”

“‘Cause they’re pretty.”

“Okay.” Stiles bends down gamely, finding a budding flower whose green leaves have not yet uncovered the petals. “What about this one?”

Marta cocks her head. “Yeah. I like it. It’s still new.”

From the animals in the barn and chicken coop, they gather a little bit of something as well—a tiny down feather, a fallen tuft of hair. Marta adds these to the jar. Back inside the house, she asks Bron for one of her hairs—and her mother, probably used to her daughter’s weird shenanigans, barely bats an eye before tugging out a loose strand. Stiles offers one too, and Marta pulls out one of her own.

“Ok, now’s the fun part,” Marta tells him as they settle onto the clover-laden swath of grass beside the porch. There’s a weathered cement nook that rests against the latticework, one their more church-going ancestors probably used as a niche for religious statues. It’s empty, but she arranges the flowers and herbs and feathers and hair in a neat circle. She sets and lights a tea candle in front of it. “You have to say what you want to happen. I always say the same thing. For this kind of spell, anyway.”

“What do you say?”

Marta straightens and stares at the candle. “ _P_ _lants and herbs for smell and sight, keep us safe through day and night. Keep us happy, safe, and free. As I say, so it will be._ ” With that, she tips backward to lie on the grass, squinting up into the sunlight. “And then it’s done. That’s the spell I use most, for protection. You can use any words, I think—but my friend Sienna in fifth grade, she says spells have to rhyme. So I asked Mom to help make it rhyme, ‘cause I like how it sounds. Poem-y.”

“Me too. It’s a cool spell,” Stiles says, watching the candle flicker. “You just let it burn out?”

“Yeah, you let the candle burn down all the way, and later you have to take the feathers and hair to a windy place and let them go.” She pauses. “It doesn’t work _always._ Sometimes we’re not happy, me and mom. We fight over stuff. Like this big one over if I could get a cell phone yet. Or the animals aren’t safe, like last year when a fox got into the chicken coop and killed some of the chickens. But mostly it works because we try our best to make it work. Mom says spells don’t work on their own. You know?”

Stiles considers this. “It’s a cool spell,” he says again.

Later, after he and Bron scrape together a macaroni dinner and the three of them sit through another viewing of _The Incredibles,_ Stiles finds the spellbook and flips back to a passage that has plagued his mind all day: _Traditional ritual-based magic, passed down for centuries, is a worthless focus for the spark, whose natural magic requires each user to weave personalized, hand-crafted spells of their own._

~*~

“So you’re working spells with Marta now?” Bron asks him the next day. She’s the only person he knows who can look both amused and fond with cow shit up to the calves of her boots. 

Stiles frowns, watching as she trims the cows’ hooves. By now, the animals are accustomed to Stiles, and they’re as placid as ever in his presence, but Bron trusts only herself to do the task. “I’m not going to call your dad saying you have a concussion or worse because I let you at it,” she’s told him firmly. Marta once explained her mother could just call in a vet, but she doesn’t want her animals regularly frightened by strangers and harnesses. 

“I guess,” Stiles says, dumping feed into the trough. “Just...you know. Summer stuff.”

“Marta’s always been like that,” Bron tells him, bending over for a better angle. “More so recently, I guess. And your mom used to be into witchy things for a bit.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Before she met your dad and had you.”

Stiles stills, suddenly thoughtful. “How _into magic,_ exactly _?”_

Bron laughs. “Oh, you know. We all want to be witches at some point. We all want to believe in magic. We all want spells that change the world, and we run around half-wild, expecting it to happen.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.” He’s not disappointed exactly, but it would’ve been nice to know he could do it by blood or something. _So much for a superhero origin story._

“Nothing’s wrong with that, though. I don’t think your mom was wrong for it. For believing. I did it with her when we were young. I don’t discourage Marta either. Maybe it’s superstitious, but it’s nice having something to keep you going.” She pauses, letting the cow’s foot go and gently patting its flank. “I always used to think...well, actually, the way Claud explained it to me is that belief _is_ magic. Belief is what carries you through, when you need a few more inches. It’s just like anything else...like praying, or ‘manifesting your destiny.’ Spells don’t do the work, they just focus our perspective. That way, we can do the work for ourselves.”

“Marta said something like that, yeah,” Stiles says thoughtfully. “It’s like wishing, but then you’re the one who does all the work.”

“Exactly.”

“My dad would look at me like I was nuts for this spell stuff. My friends would think…” he catches himself, reeling a little. “They’d maybe think I was crazy to do this kind of thing.”

Bron looks at him in surprise, turning completely toward him on her stool. Probably because he very carefully hasn’t talked about his friends at all. He’s not sure what his dad’s been telling her, if they’ve been comparing notes about him on the phone. Even so, she seems to get that this isn’t the moment for him to spill the gory details. “Well, does it matter?” she asks at last. “If it helps _you,_ does it matter to your dad, or your friends, or anyone?”

“Maybe that’s what I’d have to explain.”

“And maybe it’s none of their business anyway,” Bron adds, mulishly turning back to her work.

Stiles manages to hold it in, but he clutches his aching head as soon as he leaves the barn. On the way back to the house, he gets the strange sense of being watched again.

“I’m _trying,_ okay? _”_ he says. There’s no answer, no dark skirts and pale eyes. No one comes to accost him. 

He wonders if it’s just in his head. If all of it is.

~*~

It’s a rainy, grey evening when Stiles decides he’s going to heal their bond.

He’s spent most of the day mulling it over, tramping up and down the muddied yard in a borrowed raincoat that's been in the upstairs closet since his grandpa wore it. He gathers eggs and rinses crates and carts compost, then packs hay bales into the crowded barn in the afternoon. 

By the time he showers and flops tiredly onto his bed, the idea has cemented itself in his mind. _It’s stupid,_ he tells himself, burrowing into the blankets. The white-hot pain is already spreading in his skull, as it always does when he considers the mechanics of the bond, or the friendships he’s left behind. _Definitely won’t work._

But belief is a spell of its own, or so everyone else seems to think. And so maybe all he needs to do is try.

He doesn’t have the kinds of little mementos Marta used in her spell—hair and flowers and stuff—but it shouldn’t matter, right? Not if it’s true that he can shape a spell any way he wants to. In theory, couldn’t he just write what he wants on a piece of paper, and then “peace, the charm’s wound up” or whatever? But that seems wrong, somehow, or maybe it’s just that Marta’s way seems more real to him. Bron’s way. His mom’s way. He can’t imagine working a spell where he just stands around and thinks real hard, so maybe he needs a little more help.

But without at least some memento of his pack, he’s at a loss—until he realizes that he does have something _._

He waits until Marta and Bron have both gone to bed, and the patter of rain on the roof has begun to let up. And since he means to take advantage of every tiny trick he can use to make his mind believe, he even waits for the witching hour.

“Here goes,” he mumbles, settling onto the footboard of his bed. He pours the mountain ash— _Derek’s_ mountain ash—out of its little pot once more, letting it pile up on the floor, and then stares down at it. With his magic, he curls and twists it into the shapes he needs, creating neat sets of letters in a circle—it helps with the pain if he just considers them letters and not his friends’ names. Then he lights a tea light in the middle, sweeping a little mound of ash around it.

He's been ironing out the words he needs all day. “ _Little dark and dusty tethers, form a line as strong as steel_ ,” he murmurs, mentally pushing the little mound of mountain ash evenly toward each word, reaching out in the same way the spokes of a wheel connect a hub to the tire. “ _Keep us linked now, all together. Forge our bond and help us heal._ ” He follows by drawing a circle of mountain ash around them, around all of their names, creating one pure, unbroken whole. 

Then he crawls into bed and waits, half-dozing, for the tea light to finally burn down. Once its smoke fills the room, he magics the mountain ash into his hand and, without hesitation, opens his window to let the wind carry it away.

He’s not sure what he expects to happen once the dust finally settles, but he doesn’t feel any differently. It still hurts to think of them. He still claws vainly at the pain in his head.

 _It was a long shot,_ he reminds himself dully. _This is just what it’s going to be like now._ He hadn’t realized how much he’d hoped it would work, how badly he’d wanted it to. But hope and want aren’t the same as belief.

He lets himself wallow, head throbbing, and then he goes to get a cold washcloth for his forehead. And he resolves not to think about it anymore. Maybe ever.

~*~

“Not thinking about it” proves easier than he’d thought, if only because he’s trained himself so thoroughly in the last few weeks. Out of sight is out of mind, so in the morning he shoves the watch and book under his bed, tosses the empty mountain ash pot into his backpack in the closet, and lets it all go.

He and Marta fly a kite of their own making, poorly, and Stiles later fishes it out of the pond. He argues with Bron over the pros and cons of the _Alien_ sequels. The chores are endless, and he’s grateful for each one of them, because it’s one more minute he can spend focusing his mind on things that don’t hurt him.

It’s not until he sees the remains of another of Marta’s spells that he reconsiders his approach. He passes by the little nook on his way to weed the garden, only to realize there’s a new tea light burning, new mementos ringed around it—torn up bits of loose-leaf paper. He peers down at it but can’t make out the scrawled words.

“My best friend wrote me to say she’s going out with this stupid buttface in our grade,” Marta says from the porch. Stiles jumps and finds her cleaning out the bird feeder. “I’m doing a spell so maybe they’ll break up before I have to pretend I like him. And I mean, I’m also writing back to tell her all the reasons he’s the worst, so there’s that.”

Stiles laughs in spite of himself. “That’s...a different kind of spell.”

Marta smiles back. “No one said spells have to be nice.”

He goes back to his work, but it reminds him of what she’d said the first time. _Mostly it works because we try our best to make it work. Mom says spells don’t work on their own, you know._

Maybe he’s given up a little too soon.

Later, he fishes his phone out from under his bed. Its screen is peppered with a film of dust, and he brushes it off. He turned it off a while ago: his dad knows the number to reach him at the landline here, and it was way too painful to see the notifications from friends accumulating on his cell.

Grimacing through the pain, he fumbles through a text to Derek. 

_[Tue, 7:58 PM] we need to talk about your strategic planning, dickhead_

It’s about all he can manage. He turns the phone off again and puts it away, takes an aspirin for the headache, and sleeps through the rest of the afternoon.

~*~

Spells take time. They happen over long periods, long after the initial effort has been made. Sometimes, they happen even when you don’t give them your full attention. Sometimes, you work on them bit by bit, moment by moment, just by believing in them.

Slowly, Stiles’s spell begins to take. It’s so gradual that he hardly notices it happening over long trips to the lake, replacing roof tiles, movie nights and popcorn, sweeping the barn floor. They take a day-trip to Grand Rapids, partially to rifle through the back-to-school sales for Marta, who complains about her friend’s boyfriend most of the afternoon.

“It’s stupid. I don’t know why she needs a boyfriend anyway,” she grumbles as she and Stiles wander the aisles in search of composition notebooks. After a beat, she pauses, looking up at him consideringly. “Hey, is there someone _you_ like, Mischief?”

An image of Derek, with his stupid perfect eyes and his stupid perfect bunny teeth, flashes into Stiles’s mind. He quickly sweeps it away. 

And then he stops short, realizing that he’s done so out of embarrassment, not out of pain. The pain is still there, sure, but it’s a shallow throb where it once was deep. Kind of a soft ache even, like the last remnants of a migraine draining away. He huffs out a surprised laugh. Marta turns back, staring at him like he’s lost his mind. “So...is that a yes?”

“Uh,” Stiles says, falling into step beside her again. “Yeah. I guess so. Doesn’t really matter, though. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like me back or anything.” _Obviously,_ Stiles thinks. _With the whole pack bond thing._

“That’s stupid,” Marta replies primly, tossing her pigtail over her shoulder. “Boys are stupid. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“I’m never getting a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, fuck the system. Or, uh, screw the system.”

Marta glances at him again, amused. “Why do you like him, anyway?”

“I dunno,” Stiles hedges, thinking. It feels so strange to even be _able_ to consider it that he takes a while to work out an answer, rubbing his head against the residual pain. “We—my friends and I—we’re always getting ourselves into a lot of trouble. Like, a _lot_. We just can’t really help it most of the time. And I guess since he knows a lot more about the kinds of problems we have, he feels like he always has to drag us out of it. He’s, you know, kind of the ‘alpha male, group leader-y’ type. And he takes that job seriously, and he tries _so freaking hard,_ even though he’ll just like, growl at you if you call him on it. And he’s always worrying about us, or sitting outside people’s windows at night to protect them…”

“That’s...really weird? Isn’t it?” 

“And, you know, we—he and I, I mean—we just end up researching together sometimes after pack meetings. Uh, I mean, _group_ meetings. Friend group...meetings. And, uh, he’s really smart and funny when he’s not worried or like, running a hundred miles an hour. Plus it doesn’t hurt that he’s built like a _tree_.”

Marta, now hunched over a bin of notebooks, frowns at him. “What’s that mean?”

“Muscles. All over. Which, like, one more reason he’s not into this,” he adds, gesturing vaguely at all of him.

“You’re cute, Mischief,” Marta tells him absently, digging through the notebooks.

“You have to say that. We’re related. We have the same genes. If I’m not cute, neither are you.”

Marta wisely ignores this. “Boys are stupid,” she repeats. “If he doesn’t like you because you aren’t a tree, then don’t date him.”

Stiles snorts. “Man, you called it. I should always come to you for advice,” he laughs, watching her mouth quirk upward. “Hey, wait—this isn’t the right kind?” He pulls up a red marble composition book.

“They have to be plain black,” Marta says, but then she tugs it out of his hand to consider it. After a beat, she grabs a blue and green one from the bin as well. “These are better. Fuck the system,” she says seriously.

~*~

When they get back, he digs the phone out from under his bed and turns it on. Once it boots, he finds Derek’s responses from a week ago, spaced out over a few days, back before the spell began to work in earnest.

_[Tue, 7:59 PM] What does that mean?_

_[Tue, 8:00 PM] Stiles, where are you?_

_[Tue, 8:11 PM] Are you okay?_

_[Wed, 10:27 AM] Where are you?_

_[Wed, 5:43 PM] Stiles._

_[Fri 12:08 AM] You better be okay_

_[Sun, 2:38 PM] Text me back._

_[8 missed calls]_

Stiles snorts, weirdly touched. He texts back:

 _Stiles [4:21 PM] sorry, worrywolf.  
_ _Stiles [4:22 PM]_ _wasn’t in a good place to actually have a convo when i texted_

Derek's response is almost instant:

_Derek [4:22 PM] Are you okay?_   
_Derek [4:23 PM] Our pack bonds with you are re-forming. Which shouldn’t work unless you’re here in person._

_Stiles [4:24 PM] i know_

_Derek [4:24 PM] Did you do that somehow?  
_ _Derek [4:24 PM] Where are you?_

 _Stiles [4:25 PM] it’s a long story  
_ _Stiles [4:25 PM] i met the moth witch  
_ _Stiles [4:26 PM] she’s actually cool, maybe?_

 _Derek [4:26 PM] Are you serious?? Are you ok  
_ _Derek [4:28 PM] Where are you?_

 _Stiles [4:30 PM] i’m fine, she’s not even here anymore  
_ _Stiles [4:30 PM] i mean probably  
_ _Stiles [4:30 PM] hard to tell tbh_

 _Derek [4:30 PM] Stiles jfc  
_ _Derek [4:31 PM] Did she hurt you?_

 _Stiles [4:32 PM] i told you she’s nice  
_ _Stiles [4:32 PM] we just talked  
_ _Stiles [4:32 PM] and I’m still pissed at you by the way  
_ _Stiles [4:33 PM] it’s not all the way better  
_ _Stiles [4:33 PM] fucking hurts just to type this still_

 _Derek [4:34 PM] I’m sorry  
_ _Derek [4:34 PM] Stiles I’m really sorry  
_ _Derek [4:35 PM] Where are you?_

 _Stiles [4:36 PM] i’m fine. the last thing i need is you crawling in through my window.  
_ _Stiles [4:38 PM] sorry that came out wrong  
_ _Stiles [4:38 PM] i don’t mind it when you crawl through my window_

_Derek [4:39 PM] That’s hard for me to believe given how much you complain about it._

_Stiles [4:40 PM] it’s a weird habit  
_ _Stiles [4:40 PM] you have weird habits  
_ _Stiles [4:40 PM] but it’s ok me too i guess_

_Derek [4:41 PM] Are you coming back?_

_Stiles [4:44 PM] soon, yeah. before school starts. I think it’ll be healed soon.  
_ _Stiles [4:44 PM] anyway my head’s killing me again  
_ _Stiles [4:45 PM] i just wanted you to know i’m okay_

 _Derek [4:45 PM] Okay  
_ _Derek [4:45 PM] Stay safe._

_Stiles [4:45 PM] miss you too, big guy_

On her way past his room, Bron pauses to poke her head inside. “You okay, Mischief?” 

Stiles looks up, realizing he’s still rubbing his forehead with one hand and cradling his phone in the other. “Yeah, just a headache.” He smiles. “But it’s not actually so bad anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this is quickly becoming the most self-indulgently fluffy, vaguely Studio-Ghibli-ish fic I've ever written. In other news, the bond is (slowly being) fixed - which means we'll get to see more Derek! :D


	6. The Witch Comes to Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing is, no matter what spells he does, he can’t change his pack’s mind about him overnight. He can’t make them believe in his value. He can’t erase their thoughtless betrayal. He can’t change the way Derek thinks of him, and he wouldn’t do a spell for that even if he could.

“I will fuck you up, you shitty clock,” Stiles hisses at the pocket watch in a low voice. Moonlight streams through his bedroom window, glinting against the bronze case and chain. “ _Move._ ”

The glimmering handles stare back defiantly.

 _The thing is, this really should work,_ Stiles thinks, crouching over it as though the power of his glare alone will get the job done. _If I can make mountain ash move, and this is the same kind of thing, I should be able to do it no problem. I’m a spark. I’m a_ spark _._

It’s a matter of belief, though. It always is.

On and off over the next few days, Stiles tries again and again, working to trick himself into believing he can do this. But the watch lies still and heavy in his hands, not light and flowing like the mountain ash.

He doesn’t realize that the pack bond is back in full until breakfast one morning, when it suddenly dawns on him that he’s talking Bron’s ear off about Scott’s terrible taste in comic books.

Halfway through his sentence he stills, concentrating on that warm place where the bonds lie. _All of them are there._ Sometime while he got on with his life, doing chores and hanging out with his family, they’ve quietly rearranged themselves just as they were before Deaton’s stupid spell.

So he tells Marta about all the dick things Jackson has done this semester alone, complains about not being included in major pack (“—uh, I mean _friend group_ —”) decisions, reevaluates their strategy for divvying up hot wing orders nine ways. He daydreams about Derek’s dumb face instead of fixing the barn window.

He walks into his room, picks up the clock, and the hands jump to life.

~*~

Stiles should call Derek. There’s literally no reason not to, not if the pack bonds are back up and running. But all of a sudden, he doesn’t know what he would say. He muses about it the following afternoon as he chops bell peppers for the pizza they’ll make for lunch. Dough rises in a bread basket on the counter, and Marta and Bron are on their way back from Grand Rapids, having texted to inform him they’d scored some elusive vegan cheese.

A knock at the door jolts him from his thoughts. He expects the visitor to be one of the neighbors and—because nothing ever happens out here—opens the door without even bothering to look through the peephole.

The Moth Witch stands in front of him, smiling that polite smile.

“You can’t just bust in?” he blurts, startled.

“I thought I’d use my manners this time,” she replies, and her smile becomes a little warmer.

They have lemon mint tea, because that seems like the kind of hospitality you give to a lady in her seventies whose collar comes all the way up her throat. Stiles doesn’t really want to turn his back to her, as grandmotherly as she seems, so he pours the hot water at an angle. Setting a cup of it within her reach, he takes a seat across from her at the table.

“You managed the watch,” she says, taking tiny sips.

“Yeah, it, uh, took a while. Longer than I thought, but...you were right, about believing in it. I realized I didn’t, and I guess I had to change that.”

She hums. “You’ve been busy.”

“I’ve been learning.” He pauses. “Though honestly, my cousin’s taught me way more about magic than your little book did. And my aunt too, kind of.”

At this, the witch laughs, wrinkles creasing the skin at the corners of her eyes. “It’s often like that, isn’t it? Life is the best teacher.”

“Yeah, yeah. It would be great if everyone could stop coming at me with proverbs for like, two seconds.” He absently stirs his tea. “What happens now?”

She sets her cup down. “I mentioned before that I thought you might be useful, and I meant it. I am...a businesswoman, first and foremost. And every now and then, I need to procure a piece of magic I can’t quite work out on my own, and in cases like those I would simply ask for your help solving the problem.

“I have a web of contacts I reach out to from time to time. The sorts of people who create my talismans, for example. My point is this: if you’re agreeable, I think you could be one of them. Eventually. Now that you know what you’re capable of. And once you learn how to do...whatever it is you can do."

“No binding agreements.”

“No binding agreements. Of course, if I happen to come across any more helpful learning material, I’ll be sure to send it your way,” she adds.

“Huh. Cool,” Stiles agrees, curious to see what else she might pick up, what else he might learn. Whatever’s happening with his powers, he can sense that it’s just the beginning, that he only understands a tiny drop of it. After a moment, though, he studies her more closely. “Why do you need to ‘procure’ certain things? What are you in the business of?”

The witch considers this, leaning back in her chair. “There’s money in collecting things these days. People want to have access to certain magics, to get their hands on certain types of magic _users_ , and they don’t really care what it costs.”

Stiles realizes slowly what she’s insinuating, and he stiffens. “So you—”

“I could do that. If I knew what your magic could do, I could pick you up and ship you off for payment. It’s not normally a service I provide, though. More importantly, you’ve done nothing to deserve it. A few weeks ago, you didn’t even know you _could_ do anything.” She takes a few sips of her tea.

He frowns suspiciously. A question has been rattling around his mind for some time, and he draws it out now. “Before, you mentioned that your coven betrayed you, and it taught you a lesson. What happened?”

Her gaze grows cool, mouth pulling into a frown, and for a moment Stiles thinks he won’t get an answer at all. But eventually, she gives him a slow nod. “It’s a lesson you should learn as well: humans are strong. Powerful. Perhaps the most powerful creatures of all.”

Stiles stares. “Not sure where you’re getting that part from. You know, with the literal toothy, fangy parts of wolves and vampires.”

“Other supernatural beings have their strengths, true. But they consistently undervalue and underestimate us. With a little hard work, humans can surprise you. We know that unlike any other creature, we can’t win with our physical abilities alone. And so we’re resourceful with weapons, as your hunter friends can attest. Most of us can learn a little magic. And investing in the right strategies is what makes us powerful.”

“Yeah, but that’s not—wait, ‘most of us can learn a little magic?’” Stiles repeats, frowning.

“Some humans can learn to do certain types of ritualistic magic, the type of magic that draws its energy from either a natural source or, more perilously, a demonic one. It’s hard to find reliable information about it, but if you have it, you can learn. You, on the other hand, possess some of your own internal magic. You don’t need an external source.”

“Right, the whole ‘belief’ thing,” Stiles says, shaking his head. He studies her. “You keep saying ‘we.’ But you’re not—I mean, yeah, you aren’t a vampire, but witches aren’t _exactly_ human, right? You guys can easily one-up the average human in a fight, so...it’s not exactly the same.”

The Moth Witch smiles that same cutting smile. “ _I_ never said I was a witch. Most people just assume.”

“I’m sorry, wait—what? You were cloaked in literal darkness the first time I met you. And you like, _apparated_ straight into my bedroom without using a door.”

“Any human with the right tools can learn to do what I can do,” she says. “I have not an ounce of magic in my body. I have only the ability to perform basic ritual rites like anyone else.”

Stiles stares. “Holy fuck. What? How?”

“Let me continue my story, shall I? My coven betrayed me. I had been trying to help in my own way. Dabbling in what ritual magic I could. I was a sinister little thing even then,” she adds, with a distinctly unladylike sniff. “I can’t say I blame them. They thought I’d gone off the deep end. Eventually, they left me to die at the hands of hunters who thought I was a witch.”

“But you lived.”

“But I lived. Some of those hunters are still my friends, even after all these years. The truth is that I may not be able to do complex magic myself, but I do have connections to people who can.” She draws the wing pendant necklace into her hands, flipping it to the other side to reveal a series of runes. “I have talismans that keep me from being seen or heard. I’m careful. When I let myself be seen, usually, I make sure I look quite a bit more sinister. More otherworldly. A little bit of spooky twilight, and I come out from the woods…” she shrugs.

“Oh. My god. You...so you just pretend to be a creepy witch,” Stiles says slowly. “‘Man behind the curtain’ style. So you can…”

She’s smiling. “Yes. I suppose you might call me an information broker. It’s how I make my living. People pay me for knowledge: intelligence on other packs, information about territories or rare beings. And if it can be found, I find it. It’s a dangerous business, though, so I keep my own defenses. My clients never know I’m the Moth Witch. I just... _become_ her on occasion. As a sort of side job.”

“Like a super creepy, camouflaged moth!” Stiles exclaims, interested in spite of himself. He grins. “The kind with, you know, those spooky eyes to scare predators away.”

She smiles, pleased. “That’s how I like to think of it.”

“So, but...it doesn’t make sense. What about all the disappearances? There are all those rumors of packs disappearing, or druids, or whatever. How does that work?”

The woman’s brow furrows, two grey caterpillar eyebrows gathering close. “Sometimes,” she begins carefully, “the people or creatures I come across turn out to be quite dangerous to others. Actively so. Some druids a few months ago had been sacrificing young virginal women for their rituals—it was all very crude. Or a pack of werewolves were violently defending their Alpha who had gone rogue, biting people left and right. Other times, it’s a mindless creature, like a wendigo killing hikers in the mountains. In cases like these, I have...some rather select acquaintances who I call upon in times of need. They take care of the problem, however it needs to be done. I don’t actually get my hands dirty.”

“Holy shit,” Stiles says, completely awed. He feels a little restless, the way he does when he’s delving into a cool conspiracy theory online. “That’s...it’s all a lie. The whole legend. You literally just like, masterminded the entire thing. Pulling the strings behind the scenes.”

“My superpower is strategy,” she agrees, with a modest half-shrug. “It’s always been what I do best. I shape people’s perceptions. I change what they believe about me.”

“Huh.” Stiles nods slowly. “Okay. Okay, so why are you telling me all this? And letting me know the truth? I mean...I’m not one of those people that needs to be put down. Right? So...”

“I don’t often explain this. Most of my contacts only know me in the vaguest sense, and I come and go as I please. But you remind me of myself, so I thought I might invest in you a little more,” she says, and then her warm smile dwindles a bit. “However, it would be remiss of me not to add that if I ever hear rumors of this conversation from anyone, anywhere in the world, I’ll have to figure out a way to keep those rumors quiet. After all I’ve done, it’s in my own best interest.”

Her gaze is suddenly hard, and Stiles believes that she would do something—maybe hurt, maybe kill—to protect herself. It’s true, he supposes: if anyone knew the Moth Witch was only human, there’d be a ton of retribution coming her way from anyone still searching for their vanished and deceased.

“No one’s hearing it from me,” he tells her. Then he winces. “Except maybe the alpha of my pack, who I told I met you. And that you were probably cool. And if we’re gonna be, uh, _contacts_ or whatever, I’m gonna have to tell him that. But we’ll keep your secret.”

“I know you will,” she says matter-of-factly, and he wonders how she can possibly be the most mysteriously magical person with (somehow) less magic than he has. She hesitates, cocking her head at him. “You’re certain you’d like to return to your pack?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“They _did_ cast you out. Despite your obvious strengths.”

“I’m...it wasn’t like that,” Stiles protests weakly. “It was just to keep me safe.”

“That’s what my coven used to tell me whenever they left me behind,” the Moth Witch retorts, raising a brow. “But I was more than they thought I was. And _you’re_ more than they think you are. It would be a shame if their doubts held you back.”

“They don’t,” he says, but maybe it isn’t true. So he amends it to, “They won’t. I won’t let them. Not anymore.”

“All I’m saying is that here, far away from all of them, it’s the best opportunity you may ever have to walk away. You could easily leave them behind. Become something more than what you are. Become, well…”

“Become someone else, you mean,” Stiles finishes for her. “If I never went back, everything would be completely different. I’d be a completely different person.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

Stiles looks at her thoughtfully. He can see the parallels between them now that she’s explained it. He understands why she’s chosen to cloak her identity, especially after what happened and what she does. But with his spark abilities coming in, Stiles thinks he might be learning to be _himself,_ truly, for the first time ever. He’s learning to chase after things he wants, by magic or by action—and walking away from his pack, from who he is, feels like leaving that behind.

She must understand his resolve, because she eventually nods. And though Stiles has the sense she’s got reservations of her own, that she’d like to press the issue further, she remains silent, and it’s settled just like that.

There’s a rumble of an engine from somewhere in the distance, probably Bron and Marta coming down the dirt road that leads to the house. “It sounds like I should leave,” she murmurs, slowly sipping the last of her tea.

“Yeah, um, guess so. And I guess—I mean, if I ever actually learn anything, if I get better at this stuff...just hit me up if you need. I dunno. I’ll help if I can.”

“You’ll learn,” she says, with a lot more confidence than he feels. “You’ll find it’s possible to do quite a lot, I think. With or without magic. Now that you know you can.”

She sets her cup down on the table and stands, letting Stiles lead the way back to the front door. Outside, the sound of the engine cuts off. He opens it to find Marta and Bron pulling brown grocery bags from the back seat of the truck. “It’s been interesting to meet you, Stiles,” the not-witch says, slipping onto the porch. “Until next time.”

Stiles blinks. “Wait, uh, so what’s your actual name, anyway? And how do I find you if I need to get in touch?”

The woman laughs quietly, sweeping down the steps to the walkway just as Marta and Bron are slamming the doors shut.

“Hey, so...is this like, ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you?’” he calls after her.

Bron gives him a funny look as she approaches, turning to watch the woman walk away. “Who’s that?” she asks Stiles confusedly.

“Uh, she’s…” The three of them stare as the Moth Witch pulls up the hem of her long black dress and disappears into the cornfield, the stalks swaying in her wake. God, cornfields are creepy—he was 100% right about them. “I guess I’d call her a friend?”

Bron and Marta stare out into the field for a moment more, then turn back to face him. “Mischief,” Marta tells him seriously, “even your _friends_ are weird.”

~*~

Being an official Spark™ doesn’t change anything. It’s not like Stiles is going to suddenly start using magic for everything overnight. Or at all, really. Magic takes time and effort, and out here in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing that presses him to use it.

More importantly, magic has never been how he defines himself, and even now, he sometimes can’t quite wrap his head around it.

Still, he thinks about it sometimes in the quiet moments. Sitting on the beach by Lake Michigan, as they watch Fourth of July fireworks shoot into the starry sky, Stiles thinks, _Maybe I could make something like that one day._ He’s got Marta hooked on cloud-watching, and while they lie on their backs outside of the paddock, he wonders if he could ever shape a cloud of his own.

And then they drive up to the national forest, where the trees and the wildflowers are beautiful but strange to him, and he wonders what the Beacon Hills Preserve looks like right now.

Now that he knows they’re back, he _feels_ the place where the pack bonds hum inside of him. School starts in just a few weeks, and it will be time to head back home. He could return even now, only he feels hard-pressed to leave this place, where magic first seeped into his skin.

~*~

The thing is, no matter what spells he does, he can’t change his pack’s mind about him overnight. He can’t make them believe in his value. He can’t erase their thoughtless betrayal. He can’t change the way Derek thinks of him, and he wouldn’t do a spell for that even if he could.

If he could only channel a bit of the Moth Witch’s knowledge and strategy, he might find ways to quickly make himself useful, to harness rituals and talismans to become something greater than what he is now. He might turn his silly little spells into something powerful or fearsome.

But he can’t do any of that. In the end, he’s just Stiles. And maybe, in spite of all the hassle that fact brings, it isn’t such a bad thing.

 _It doesn’t feel the same here without you,_ Derek texts him one day. They’ve been chatting back and forth recently, the messages slow and spaced out. Stiles sends pictures of his life here: Marta in front of their colorful tomato harvest, DIY taco night in their kitchen, and a photo Bron took of one of the cows chewing Stiles’s hair as he dozed under the oak tree.

 _Stiles [8:56 PM]_ _yeah, I miss you guys too_

_Derek [8:57 PM] The pack bonds are back. Why aren’t you?_

_Stiles [8:59 PM] i don’t know  
_ _Stiles [8:59 PM] honestly at first i just came out here so i didn’t have to see you guys  
_ _Stiles [8:59 PM] but now i’m really gonna miss it here  
_ _Stiles [9:00 PM] i want it both ways_

 _Derek [9:01 PM] I didn’t realize that’s why. You should stay, if you want.  
_ _Derek [9:01 PM] School starts soon, so you’ll be back for that.  
_ _Derek [9:04 PM] You’re coming back then, right?_

 _Stiles [9:06 PM] i’m coming back for sure  
_ _Stiles [9:06 PM] why did you think i was still here?_

_Derek [9:09 PM] I don’t know, I thought you were still angry._

_Stiles [9:09 PM] ???  
_ _Stiles [9:09 PM] dude we text all the time, you’d know if i was angry  
_ _Stiles [9:09 PM] i mean i’m bitter ngl but not enough to move away forever  
_ _Stiles [9:10 PM] besides you guys all have to make it up to me  
_ _Stiles [9:10 PM] and you better believe im gonna milk that_

_Derek [9:11 PM] Yeah, you probably should._

It’s hard to read Derek’s tone over text, to figure out if he’s bitter or joking or guilty. Stiles wishes he was here now. He stares down at the screen for a minute, then out his open window, where the grass billows in the breeze.

 _Stiles [9:16 PM] my cousin taught me this thing  
_ _Stiles [9:16 PM] when you say a spell you have to decide exactly what it is you want  
_ _Stiles [9:16 PM] you have to know for yourself  
_ _Stiles [9:17 PM] and then you work toward it_

 _Derek [9:18 PM] Okay.  
_ _Derek [9:21 PM] I don’t get it?_

 _Stiles [9:21 PM] i know  
_ _Stiles [9:21 PM] let’s talk when i get back_

 _Derek [9:21 PM] Okay._  
_Derek [9:22 PM] Take care of yourself.  
_ _Derek [9:22 PM] I’ll kill you if you get hurt between here and there._

_Stiles [9:23 PM] goes both ways asshole_

~*~

Marta’s friends come back from sleepaway camp at the end of July, sunburned and sweaty. They knock on the front door to see if Marta can come play. Stiles is prepared to give her some space, but she insists he come as well.

“Your friends are dumb,” she tells him bluntly. “Come play with mine instead.”

It’s three girls in all, with names Stiles is sure he’ll forget by the end of the week. On the dew-covered lawn by the paddock, Marta shows off her new and improved cartwheel, and the others beg Stiles to teach them to do the same. They play tag, and one of them tries unsuccessfully to show them all how to skateboard.

Her friends have their own secret stories from camp, their own inside jokes, and while they don’t exactly leave Marta out of their conversations, Stiles can tell by the way she goes quiet that she sometimes feels excluded. From the outside looking in, he thinks these girls seem a little more worldly than Marta, a little more conventional. They gossip about celebrities, about who has a boyfriend (at nine??) and who doesn’t, about the games on their cell phones. He watches Marta try to understand where she fits into their lives now that they’re back, because the terrain of their friendship has changed in subtle ways. And he wonders whether the four of them will eventually root back together like a crop of new plants, or whether they’ll eventually grow apart.

He wonders how Marta will fare, whether she’ll style herself as one of them or take on her own colors.

For now, though, they all lie on the grass to name the clouds, and then the stars. Now that Stiles is back to being a phone-wielding citizen of the 21st century, he snaps pictures of Marta and her friends, the fields, the sky.

As he carries Marta piggy-back into the house when it’s done, Stiles finds himself surprised by how much he enjoyed the company, even just of some random kids. There’s something about being in a bigger group, something about the girls’ general cheer, even if it was for stuff he doesn’t really care about. But there’s also something missing, and it makes Stiles long for his own pack—the scenting, the gentle touches, the easy companionship there. And he thinks that Derek would understand that.

~*~

On the last day of July, Stiles wakes to find a thin book—essentially just a few hand-bound pages of yellowed paper—sitting at eye level on his nightstand.

If he weren’t so accustomed to werewolves coming and going from his room at odd hours, he might have been a little more weirded out by it. He blearily rolls over to find a note atop the pages: _Dear Stiles, I do look forward to working with you. I hope this helps. -Hisa._

 _Hisa,_ then. And it’s not like she’s dropped her contact info, but he’ll take what he can get.

As it turns out, whatever book she’d pulled from _is_ better than the first primer on spark magic, maybe because it’s not actually about sparks. Inside, there’s only a handful of simple spells, the common and ritualistic kind. After skimming through the notes on theory, Stiles concludes that they’re the kind that draw from natural sources. Most of the spells are related to weather, plants, and animals. Stiles wonders if that’s because those are the simplest sorts of spells, or because the Moth Witch—Hisa?—still hopes that he’s planning to stay in Michigan, here on the farm. That he and his pack are done for good.

In a sense, he can see where she’s coming from. He loves it out here, where the only two colors seem to be the green of the fields and the blue of the sky. He likes the idea of little spells, daily spells, the kind that Marta does before working to make them real. He likes thinking he might watch a place like this grow over time, putting a little of his magic into the earth underfoot or the air around him.

But he doesn’t like it enough to actually stay forever, though. Not here. He imagines instead what he might do in Beacon Hills with his magic, what he might cultivate. Which means she doesn’t know him as well as she probably thinks.

Either way, this is a start. He flops down on the bed, flips through the pages, and gets to work.

~*~

“You know you could stay here. Right up ‘till school starts,” Bron reminds him. She’s sitting on the counter, nursing her cup of coffee. It’s a little before dawn, and the house is still quiet. Outside, the rooster’s been crowing nonstop for like two hours straight, the stupid asshole. “We love having you. And you know you’re no trouble. No matter what your dad says.”

Covering a yawn, Stiles grins at the barb and takes a seat at the table. “Yeah, I know. It’s two weeks out, though. And I think I’m actually ready to head back.”

Bron nods. “And your friends?” she asks, more warily.

“Yeah, they...we’re okay.” He hesitates. “They weren’t really _trying_ to hurt me, you know. I guess it just seemed like I wasn’t part of the group, but after I got a little space, it turned out I maybe kind of _was_ the whole time? Hard to explain. But I think we’ll be okay.”

“It’s good to hear.” She pauses, mulling over her words. “You know, Stiles, I don’t really need to know what happened or anything. Your dad doesn’t either, even if I expect he’ll be nosy about it. But you’re a good kid. And you need to make sure you’re around the kind of people who don’t forget it. And you shouldn’t forget it, either.”

“I know that. I’m amazing.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Bron returns, grinning over her mug. At last, she leans back and crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back against the cabinet to close her eyes. “Although it _is_ going to be much quieter around here. When you’re gone.”

“Yeah, I miss coming around here in the summers.”

Bron nods. “Plus, who’s gonna do your chores?”

“Didn’t you guys do them all before I came?” Stiles asks, laughing.

“And Marta’s gonna be heartbroken.”

At this, Stiles pauses, quirking his head. “Why does it sound like you’re trying to make me feel guilty all of a sudden?”

Bron smiles. “Because I was talking to your dad. And if you don’t mind some company, we could use a short end-of-summer trip.”

~*~

Stiles hates packing, and that’s the thing he’s psyching himself up to procrastinate for the next week. But as it turns out, he doesn’t have to try too hard to find other stuff to do. There’s a bunch of specific prep that goes into taking a vacation when you have a farm. Bron has him check the fences and gates and barn roof for rough patches needing repair. Marta pulls out some extra feeders and waterers for the animals so they need less frequent care. Bron gathers up a box with the stuff that might be needed for animal first aid, and then she calls one of the neighbor’s teens to pay him for handling a pared-down to-do list while they’re out.

“I just need someone to make sure no one dies while we’re gone. But something’s gonna happen anyway, and it’ll be the cows. They’re always plotting,” Bron grumbles, rolling her eyes as she sets down the phone. “Last time we did a long weekend in Denver, Minnie got her head stuck in a tree trunk—don’t ask me how, but the neighbors called in the firefighters to cut part of the wood away.”

In keeping with what is now tradition (while also procrastinating the packing and in-house cleaning they need to finish), Stiles and Marta go out to the yard to do a spell for this, too. Marta takes charge, arranging flowers and herbs and hair in a circle in their usual spot. She says her usual protection spell, a bit altered to include a request to keep the animals from their own stupidity. Stiles smiles as they speak the last words together: _“As we say, so it will be.”_

They watch the candle burn down until Bron calls them in for dinner.

When Stiles finally brings himself to pack that evening, it’s not quite as terrible as he’d imagined. Mostly it involves hunting down all of his stuff, peeking under beds and snagging chargers from behind sofas and then shoving it all into his suitcase. Marta and Bron have to make actual decisions about what they’re bringing, which is probably why Marta ends up dragging Stiles into the process.

“Which books should I take?” she asks, tossing a couple of young adult novels in his direction. “Help me pick, ‘cause last time Mom nagged me for taking too many.”

Stiles sinks onto the bed, studying the choices seriously before he meets her eyes. “All of them, or else what’s the point of going on vacation?”

“So you’re saying I should take books over clothes.”

“Yes. Definitely that.”

She makes a face. “Are you gonna help me or not?”

“I _am_ helping,” Stiles protests. His gaze catches on a pink camera she’s placed in her tidy ‘maybe’ pile. “Oh, what? Is that a polaroid?”

“Yeah, I got it for my birthday. I like it, but I don’t know how to use it super well yet. The pictures always come out blurry, or way too white so you can barely tell what’s in it.”

“That’s the best kind of pictures—they’re always mysteries when you look back. You’re bringing it,” he declares, picking it up to peer through the viewfinder.

She shakes her head tolerantly. “You’re useless, Mischief.”

He retaliates by turning the camera around to awkwardly take a selfie of the two of them. Marta makes an odd sound, half surprise and half indignation, and then tackles him to the ground to wrestle the camera away. “Don’t waste the film!” she protests, snatching the photo to put it on the bed.

To Stiles’s surprise, she carefully sets a few tiny jars of dried herbs and petals into a canvas bag and settles it in her suitcase. “For spells,” he realizes. “On the go. That’s smart.”

“ _I’m_ smart,” she retorts absently, looking over a piece of paper on her desk that must be a packing list. Nine years old, and she’s more adult-ish than some of the actual almost-adults Stiles knows. Funnier and cleverer by far.

He stands and goes back to his room, rifling around in his suitcase, and then he brings back the tiny book of rituals from the Moth Witch.

“Here. A goodbye present,” he tells Marta, handing it over.

“We’re not saying goodbye yet,” Marta says, but she flips through the pages curiously all the same. “What is it?”

“A book of spells. Real spells, like the ones you use. A friend gave it to me, and she knows her way around this kind of stuff.”

“These are...cool,” Marta says, surprised. She studies an illustration of a ritual circle, and then flips the page. “One spell to banish disease from fowls. One to make the weather hold out another hour. One to clean dirty water...” She runs her hands along the worn pages, and then she looks up. “It’s _super_ old,” she adds excitedly, in the same way someone else might protest, _But it’s priceless!_ “Are you sure you want me to have it?”

“Sure. ‘Cause I know you’ll take good care of it. You’re really smart, and you care about this kind of thing. Not just magic, I mean, but the crops and the animals and Bron. You’re trying to take care of everyone, and that makes you one of the coolest people I know. And smart, and funny. And I guess what I’m trying to say is, you’re awesome just the way you are.”

“Oh.” Marta smiles down at the pages. “Okay. I’ll take really good care of it,” she adds solemnly, though the effect is minimized by the eager way she nods her head. “I promise.”

“You better. You can update me on which ones work.”

“I will. It’s...it’s gonna be really different when you’re not here to talk to anymore. I’m gonna miss you.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna miss you, too. If I talk Bron into getting you a phone, we can call each other sometimes, ‘till next time I see you.”

Marta shakes her head. “Good luck, but that’d be cool.”

“I bet she would if I told her it’ll help us stay in touch! And there’s a bunch of games we can both download too. Like I can own you at Words With Friends even from all the way in Beacon Hills.”

“You—hey, but that’s only because you’re twenty grades above me!”

“It’s incentive to catch up, midget.”

Marta rolls her eyes, and then she picks up the polaroid. “Wow,” she says, delighted, “it came out nice!”

Stiles peers over her shoulder, and there they are: Stiles grinning like an idiot, hair sticking up, and Marta’s just behind him with a stack of books in her arms, her expression surprised and pleased.

“It’s perfect,” she adds, and then she tucks the picture into the little book, carefully setting them both into the front pocket of her suitcase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, this tea scene was like the first thing that popped into my head when I started outlining this story. I'm so psyched to actually get to write it! I really hope you enjoyed our "witch's" minor plot twist. And next time we'll see Derek IN PERSON! (wow I've missed that guy)
> 
> On another note, a mini-update: although I've been crunching to see if I could get this whole thing written asap...there might be a short delay between this and the next chapter. I wish I could say it was for a cool reason, but really it's that I just got a switch and the new Animal Crossing game releases at midnight and I've been waiting for MONTHS. Literally cannot wait to be shoulder-deep in debt on my own private island 😍
> 
> Let me know what you thought, and I hope y'all are staying happy and healthy (and washing your hands!) out there!


	7. All That Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You shouldn’t be out here." Derek’s voice is quiet as he climbs to his feet, approaching with silent steps. "It's late."
> 
> “I was waiting for you to show.” Stiles peers at Derek’s face, vaguely illuminated in the glow of the nearest streetlight, but he can’t quite make out the expression there.

“Is there a spell so the plane doesn’t crash?” Marta wonders anxiously as they stand in line to board.

“Yeah, it’s called in-flight movies,” Stiles says. “You never crash as long as you’re watching one. Swear.”

Marta shoots him a dark look, but she determinedly binges all of _Moana_ on one flight and _The Force Awakens_ on the next. And upon their arrival in San Francisco, she resolutely ignores Stiles as he congratulates her on her impeccable work.

Beacon Hills is just a few hours away, but Stiles has only been to San Fran twice, both times before his mom died. The only thing he still remembers is the childish fear that the winds whipping over the Golden Gate Bridge might carry him right into the sea.

They aren’t here long, though, so the three of them rent a car and forgo the bridge for the Fisherman’s Wharf and Musée Mechanique, where Bron tells them stories about the old arcade games and even manages to win the mechanical arm wrestling one. By the next morning they’re already on their way out of the city, popping into Chinatown for tea and dim sum before they hit the road.

Beacon Hills isn’t terribly far, just four hours in a straight shot, except they aren’t interested in a straight shot. Instead, Bron drives them west to Big Basin Redwoods State Park, where the three of them find a quiet spot off the trail to sit and stare. When Derek texts in the late evening they’re already on the road again, but Stiles sends a photo without context: himself, smiling against a backdrop of redwoods. Marta is in the shot as well, grinning as she pokes bunny ears over his head. He giddily ignores the frantic _Are you coming back_ and _Where are you now?_ Instead, he says only _see you soon._ When he checks later, Derek has sent over a garble of frustrated letters that makes Stiles grin.

The next morning, they hit up San José, where Stiles and Marta pretend not to be spooked by the Winchester House. By the next day, they’re in Sacramento for the zoo. Then there’s an afternoon in Lake Tahoe, where Stiles finds he’s somehow terrible at steering a canoe (though it somehow looks so easy?). He’s been sending Derek photos as they go, and he eventually manages to mentally bully himself into sending a photo Bron had taken: himself sitting shirtless on the pier. He puts his phone away after that, ostensibly so it won’t get wet but mostly so he won’t have to think about Derek’s response, and it’s only when he crawls into the hotel bed that he sees it: _All that sun looks good on you._

They reach Beacon Hills late on the fifth day, exhausted and (in Marta’s case) faintly sunburnt. The world outside the Stilinski house is dark, but the lights are on inside, and Stiles’s dad opens the door to greet them before they can even knock. He grabs Stiles into a bear hug as soon as he sees him, one hand cupping the back of his son’s head.

“Hair’s getting long,” his father says thickly. He still hasn’t let go, and Stiles reflects that it really, really sucks that this summer’s drama meant he’s missed out on a few months with his dad.

Stiles pulls back, running a hand through his hair as well. It had been closer to a buzz cut earlier this summer, but it’s grown long enough now to get messy in the mornings. “Yeah, guess I should cut it, maybe.”

His dad’s eyes dart up and down, maybe cataloguing other things, subtle changes that mark this version of Stiles as different from the one who left at the start of summer. “Nah. Don’t. It suits you.”

“Missed you too, dad,” Stiles murmurs.

The greetings between his dad and Marta and Bron are a little more formal, only because Marta doesn’t know him very well and Bron hasn’t seen him in ages. But once the initial awkwardness fades, Stiles and Marta quickly busy themselves pulling the bags in and unpacking, pretending not to see their parents’ watery smiles as they catch up on the past few years.

Marta and Bron are set to share a bed in the guest room, but when it becomes clear that Bron and his dad don’t plan to stop waxing poetic about times gone by or what the extended family is up to, Marta rolls her eyes and drags Stiles upstairs. She nosily pokes and prods at all the stuff in his room (“It’s only fair, you do the same to me all the time”), and then they play video games until Marta falls asleep in his bed. He tosses a blanket over her, hesitates, and then slips out of his window.

The slipping is almost literal: the roof tiles are slick with recent rain, and he wobbles a bit before settling himself beside the dormer window. And then he waits. It takes a half hour for a shadow to move at the opposite end of the roof, the one by the porch overhang. By then, Stiles has pulled a blanket over his shoulders to ward off the light summer chill.

“Took you long enough,” Stiles grumbles sleepily.

“You shouldn’t be out here." Derek’s voice is quiet as he climbs to his feet, approaching with silent steps. "It's late."

“I was waiting for you to show.” Stiles peers at Derek’s face, vaguely illuminated in the glow of the nearest streetlight, but he can’t quite make out the expression there. He’s been thinking about this moment for so long, about all the things he means to say. And even though there’s so much Stiles wants to tell him, he feels himself faltering, uncertain of the reaction.

At last Derek comes to stand just beside him, staring. His eyes flick up and down, taking in as much of Stiles as they can around the blanket, much in the same way his dad had done. “You’re really okay?” The werewolf says it like he can’t quite believe it. “It took so long to hear from you. I know we’ve been talking, but I still wasn’t sure…”

Stiles frowns. “I told my dad to let you guys know I was fine. Didn’t he?”

“He did,” Derek confirms, shuffling from foot to foot. “Through Scott, anyway. It was just hard not to hear it from you. Where did you _go?_ ”

“Are you gonna give me a crick in my neck from this conversation, or are you gonna sit down like a civilized human?”

“Good to see you haven’t changed at all,” Derek grumbles, but he drops down onto the roof beside Stiles. He’s close enough that Stiles thinks he can almost feel the warmth of Derek’s arm radiating outwards.

“I went to Michigan. Got some family there. They’re the two in the house now, my Aunt Bron and my cousin Marta. I just needed some space, after the whole ‘voted off the island’ thing.”

Derek makes a pained face. “Right. Look, Stiles, we didn’t—”

Stiles waves a hand, annoyed with himself. Or maybe with Derek, he isn’t quite sure. “I know. It’s whatever. Anyway, the Moth Witch finally caught up with me.”

“You were serious.”

“I’m serious.”

“What the hell, Stiles?” Derek asks, exasperated. “You should have told me where you were as soon as you knew she was there. What if something happened to you?”

“Well like I said, she’s nicer than you’d think. Not _completely_ nice, but...at least she’s definitely not the sinister psycho she’s meant to be. And not to give away her secrets or anything, but she’s really not gonna bug us.”

“How can you _possibly_ know that? How can you be sure she won’t come after you?”

“Trust me, Derek. I just know.” Derek’s mouth works open and closed, probably because he’s just as aware as Stiles that he _does_ owe him a little trust, but Stiles hurries on before the werewolf can put his foot in it. “Really, we’re cool. Actually, she’s the one who helped me figure out what happened to the bond.”

“What did happen? Are you really okay now?”

“ _I’m_ _okay_. Jesus, Derek, stop freaking out.”

“Don’t—” Derek pauses, then swears low under his breath. When he turns to Stiles, there’s an angry twist to his mouth. “Don’t act like this isn’t a big deal, Stiles. You disappeared. For the entire summer. No one knew where you were, if you were hurt, there was a _witch_ after you, and—”

“And you didn’t know if the puny human was going to make it out alive?” Stiles adds irritably before he can help himself.

Derek pauses. “That’s not what I mean.”

“That’s how it sounds _._ You know, it drives me crazy when you act like I can’t take care of myself. I didn’t vanish like some damsel in distress. I _left._ It was a choice. I’m human, but I’m not defenseless. And you know, it fucking hurt,” he adds honestly, surprising even himself. But since the words are out, he doubles down on them. “What you guys did, it fucking _hurt_.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

“Then why did you do it? Why do you do stuff like this?”

“I was afraid, Stiles. I didn’t want to get you hurt.” Derek swallows, then repeats, “I was afraid.”

Stiles stares. “Sure. _You_ were afraid.”

The werewolf shifts awkwardly. “You’re important. To the pack. To me.”

Stiles shakes his head, the wind going out of him. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Okay, look, I guess I...get that. I get where you’re coming from. And I’m sorry, because I know I already bitched about all this, and you keep saying this isn’t what you were trying to do, and maybe it’s partially on me because I didn’t put up the fight I should have. But when you asked me to sit through that ritual, you made me feel like I wasn’t worthy of being in your pack. Like it was better—or at least easier—if I just wasn’t there at all _._ ”

Derek looks pained. “That’s not what I meant. We wanted to protect you. You know that.”

“Yes, that’s what you told me. But the way you actually _did_ it told me I was _weak_ , not that you cared about me. It told me that because I was weak I didn’t deserve to be with you guys.”

“I never wanted you to feel that way.”

“Yeah, I get that now,” Stiles says again. “I do. But I still want you to promise me you’ll never do something like this again. Especially you.”

Derek doesn’t even hesitate. “Never. I promise.”

The words feel magical somehow, as if they’ve come to float in the air between them. Stiles pauses, studying Derek’s earnest face, the faint lines of anxiety on his forehead. Stiles nods, and then he turns a little more, settling his back against the wall of the dormer window so he’s facing Derek.

“Look...the reason the bond didn’t sever completely is because my magic held onto it,” he begins slowly. From within his blanket, he draws out the pocket watch, its bronze inlay glimmering in the dim light. “I know it sounds crazy, but I can do stuff. Little things so far, just like…” he trails off, peering down at the watch hands, which rotate quickly backward and then forward under his touch. Derek leans forward to study it, then he looks up at Stiles in surprise.

“I didn’t know about it before this summer, but that’s what fucked up this whole break-up ritual. I'm _not_ just a normal human. I’m something different. My spark is...more than just a spark, I guess. I can make up my own spells with mountain ash, or just with the right words. _I_ did a spell to repair the broken bonds. That was all me.”

Derek must be able to hear the truth in Stiles’s words, but there’s amazement in his raised eyebrows and half-open mouth. Stiles concentrates on the watch instead of looking at him, watching it circle round and round. Eventually, Derek settles his hand over Stiles’s, giving a small squeeze, and it surprises Stiles so much that the watch stills instantly as his concentration shatters. “You’re amazing,” Derek says, his voice low and fervent. “I wish I hadn’t done this to you.”

Stiles smiles weakly. “Well, you can regret it for the rest of your life. You just promised you’ll never do this again, so that means you’re stuck with me. So just...keep me around, okay?”

Derek smiles back, and that feels a little magical too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ventures out of a video game coma in the midst of the viral apocalypse to post this, then retreats back into her apartment turned bunker*
> 
> It's a bit short, I know, but small steps :) One chapter to go!


	8. So It Will Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles likes the way Derek looks just now, with none of the tension that usually runs through his broad shoulders. His eyes dance in the sunlight that reflects off the water. “Hey,” Stiles adds, more hesitant now. “Do you wanna maybe go for a walk?”

Bron and Marta have only a day and a half in town before they fly out of Redding, but it’s not like there’s exactly a ton of stuff to do here in Beacon Hills anyways. Over breakfast, Bron and Stiles’s dad decide to go visit his mom’s grave for a bit, leaving Marta with Stiles. After some internal debate, Stiles decides his pack can wait an extra day to catch up with him, and he wholeheartedly agrees to Marta’s request for a grand tour of town in the Jeep.

At least until the two of them grab their stuff and step outside. Pulling into the driveway is the McCalls’ Honda, and Scott’s jumping out of it almost before he’s put the thing in park.

“Dude, you’re back!” he blurts, his grin wide and cheery. He strides forward, making a move as though he’s going to hug Stiles, and then he suddenly hangs back, mouth twisting downward. “It’s, uh, really good to see you,” the werewolf adds in a more subdued voice, and Stiles looks up to see Erica, Isaac, and Boyd stepping from the car as well. “We were pretty worried. Like, all summer.”

Stiles blinks at his friend’s uncharacteristic restraint, knowing Scott must be able to feel that the bond is fully healed, that Stiles isn’t in pain anymore. And then he realizes Scott isn’t sure whether or not Stiles is still pissed at them.

Which he definitely should be. Probably. He would have been a few months back. But looking at them now, he only wonders what became of their summer—whether they managed to get in some relaxation around their constant training, or whether he’d be seeing significantly more cuts and injuries on them now if they were human. And the truth is, after an entire summer of separation and a painful low-grade yearning to be home, Stiles is only struck by how much he’s _missed_ them, and Scott most of all.

“Come here, asshole,” he murmurs, pulling his best friend into a hug.

“Dude, I missed you,” Scott mutters into his shoulder, hugging back so tightly that Stiles’s breath catches in his chest. “You don’t even know.”

Stiles barks out a laugh, and he’s almost surprised to find that it’s good-humored rather than resentful. “Yeah, I think I really do.”

Scott winces at that, but his smile doesn’t falter. “Yeah, I guess you do. For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry. We all are.”

Stiles claps him on the back, and though he reserves the right to be incomparably pissy about this whole thing at a later date of his choosing, he’s _really_ glad to finally see them (without feeling like someone’s bashing his skull in). The other werewolves approach, smothering him in hugs that linger a little too long for typical human etiquette. They’re no doubt anxious to get the pack’s scent over him once more; Stiles has no idea what he must smell like now. Rental cars and stale trail mix, probably.

“Nice to see you’re not dead,” Boyd tells him, quirking a smile.

“I’m pretty proud of that too,” Stiles says, returning the grin. “And look, not that I’m not, like, super happy to see you guys, and I was planning to swing by eventually, but we were actually just heading out. Why didn’t you text or something?”

“We did,” Isaac says wryly.

Stiles frowns, checking his phone, and sure enough he finds several messages from all four of them spaced out over the past half hour (with phrases like _where the fuck have you been_ and _coming over whether you like it or not_ and _looks like this is a surprise attack_ ). There are a few from the rest of the pack as well, and a few from Derek. If the others hadn’t sensed Stiles’s return to town through the pack bonds, Stiles guesses, Derek must have told them by now.

“Huh,” Stiles mutters, “guess I’m just...weirdly used to ignoring my phone recently. Uh, anyway, it’s just that me and my cousin are gonna tour the town,” he adds, jerking his head at Marta. She’s a few paces back, her head tilted curiously at the four strangers. “She’s only here ‘till tomorrow. This is Marta, by the way. Marta, these are my asshole friends, Scott, Erica, Boyd, and Isaac.”

“Hi, assholes,” Marta chirps without missing a beat.

Isaac looks between them and mutters something about family resemblance under his breath.

“If it’s not weird,” Erica says hesitantly, “maybe we can meet up later? You can show Marta part of the preserve. A picnic or something. By the pond, okay?” she adds, her tone more decisive now. “Just to say hi. I’ll text you the details.”

Stiles hesitates, peering at Marta, but his cousin shows no signs of being fazed by this development. And anyway, the pond probably isn’t the _worst_ idea.

“Forests are cool,” Marta remarks out of nowhere. “I mean, I liked the forest we saw with the redwoods. It’s nothing like what we have at home.”

Stiles laughs. “The Preserve isn’t the same, though. The trees aren’t nearly as big.”

“That’s okay. We could check it out.”

Erica beams. With this decided, the werewolves leave somewhat reluctantly, peering over their shoulders as though they aren’t sure Stiles won’t just up and vanish again, but they eventually pile back into the car and drive away.

Stiles and Marta wave them off and then set out. They start with a tour of the little Beacon Hills version of main street and spiral out from there, driving up and down the neighborhood streets to settle a bet over how many houses still have Christmas lights up in August. By the afternoon, Marta scores an awesome yard sale find: a pink dog sweater.

“For Emmy,” she explains. “I think it’s about goat-sized.”

“She’s gonna hate it.”

“She’s gonna _love_ it. At least until she eats it.”

There’s not much else to do around town, but since the mall recently got a vegan-friendly froyo place, they swing by—and that’s when Marta springs the question on him.

“So the guy from last night, is he the guy you like?”

Stiles chokes a little and wipes chocolate off his chin. “I thought you were sleeping!”

“I mean, I was. Until I heard voices.”

“Snoop. Did you pretend to be sleeping just to make me carry you downstairs?” Stiles grumbles.

She snorts. “Duh. I was too lazy to get up. And you didn’t answer.”

Stiles scowls. “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes.”

“Is he cute? You said he has muscles, but that doesn’t mean he’s cute.”

“What?” Stiles’s face grows hot. “Marta, we’re not talking about this—”

“Come on, you’re supposed to tell me this kind of stuff, and I didn’t see him. Does he like you back?”

“I don’t _know_ , Marta.”

“Well, does he at least know you like _him_?”

Stiles sighs. “No. I mean, I was thinking about telling him. I thought I’d made up my mind about it over the summer but, it’s different when he’s _there._ You know, like, actually sitting in front of you.”

“You should. How’s he gonna know if you don’t say something? You guys have to talk about stuff,” she adds.

“Gee, thanks,” he says, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “You solved it. Two thousand years of romantic issues and we all could have just asked _you._ ”

Marta shrugs helplessly. “Well, I don’t know anything. I’m just trying to help. I’m only nine.”

Stiles takes pity on her. “Yeah, join the club. I’m seventeen and I’ve never known anything in my whole life.”

“Oh. Well, maybe you should tell your dad or my mom and see what they—”

“ _Hard_ pass,” Stiles laughs, embarrassed just to think about it.

Marta pauses. “Am I the only person who knows?”

“You’re the only person who knows because you drag this stuff out of me, Marta. Like a terrier.”

She beams instead of taking it as an insult. “Cool! Secret stuff.” She crunches down on the last of her cone, then licks her sticky fingers. “Sorry I couldn’t help, though. But anyway, I think if he likes you even though you don’t know anything, maybe he’s a good guy. And if he doesn’t like you, then he’s even stupider than you are.”

Stiles can’t help but grin. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

~*~

The afternoon finds them driving beneath the shady trees of the preserve, Marta chattering eagerly about the start of school. When they at last pull into the parking area off of the Eddie Creek trail, they find the small pond spilling out before them, its green waters glimmering in the sunlight. The rest of the pack is already there, lazing about in the grass or swimming in the shallows, some of them sitting on a ring of logs at the edge of the water. They wave warmly to Stiles and Marta as they approach.

Stiles’s gaze, of course, snaps to Derek. He’s talking to Isaac by the pond, but he looks up and offers a genuine smile—a quick one, as if the muscles of his face have surprised even the werewolf himself. It makes Stiles’s heart jump to life, and he hopes fervently that none of the other wolves are listening in.

There are sandwiches and lukewarm pizza, a half-eaten fruit tray and some store-bought cupcakes whose icing is melting in the sun. Scott hands them a couple of flat Cokes, and the betas settle eagerly on the grass and logs around them. Marta presses into Stiles’s side a little, but she eases up as the others begin peppering them with earnest questions about their trip around the state, and then about where the hell Stiles has been all summer.

“With _me,_ ” Marta says, apparently indignant at their accusatory tone of voice. “And with Mom. He used to help on the farm sometimes in the summers, and he came to do it again.”

“ _You?_ ” Jackson guffaws. “On a _farm?_ ”

“Hey, it’s not so hard to keep animals alive,” Stiles smirks back. “I do it all the time here.”

He gets the expected heckling and laughter from the comment but is surprised to find that a few of them flinch and offer subdued smiles. He can tell that their thoughts have probably jumped to the way they’d cut him out of the pack in spite of all his help, and it’s not what he meant to happen at all. Still, he’s suddenly grateful for Marta at his side, because her presence prevents them from discussing the ritual itself, at least for a little longer.

Derek regards him sympathetically from behind his betas, and then throws out a lifeline. “Sure, but how much of the _crops_ did you kill?”

Stiles opens his mouth to answer, but Marta beats him to it. “Just one plant,” she says smugly. He shoots her a surprised look. “Mom’s snake plant on the porch. You never remembered to water it when you did the garden.”

“Oh, yeah. Valid.”

Lydia leans in, smiling at Marta, but there’s something sly about it that makes Stiles wary. “Hey, do you happen to have a phone number I could have? It’s just, if you knew Stiles growing up, I have _so many questions_.”

“I don’t have one yet, but Mischief’s gonna make a case to mom soon,” Marta replies, glancing hopefully at Stiles.

“Not if you’re gonna turn around and stab me in the back like this,” Stiles mutters, elbowing her.

“Why do you always call him Mischief?” Scott asks before Stiles can shoot _that_ idea down.

“Because it’s a short version of his—”

“Because I get into a lot of trouble,” Stiles interrupts loudly, covering her mouth with one hand. “Obviously.”

The betas laugh in bemused surprise, though Marta smugly refuses to give any other information when further pressed. Derek quirks an eyebrow at Stiles, who only shakes his head fervently.

Later, the others bully them into swimming, dragging Stiles into the water despite his half-hearted protests. Marta, grinning wildly and shaking her wet bangs from her eyes, teams up with Boyd to dunk Stiles and Erica as often as they can. Scott and Isaac and Derek get into some kind of speed swimming competition, though Stiles isn’t sure how it works exactly since they have to keep up the appearance of being human with Marta around. Even so, Derek is the apparent winner, and he crows about it to Isaac’s face in the way only he can, with arms crossed haughtily and a smirk across his face.

Marta, now sitting on Stiles’s shoulders to watch it all, bends over to whisper into his ear. “I guess he _is_ cute,” she says, with no idea she’s surrounded by particularly keen ears, and Stiles’s face goes cherry red. “You should tell him.” Fortunately, no one seems to overhear over all the splashing, or at least they don’t let on if they do. And Stiles promptly leans back so that Marta splashes into the water behind him.

She comes up spluttering, and a laughing Erica takes pity on her. “Let’s leave your dumbass cousin for a sec. Boyd has an cooler full of popsicles hidden somewhere. Wanna come steal them?”

Marta sticks out her tongue and goes, leaving Stiles alone in the water. Stiles watches her leave, wringing water from the t-shirt plastered to her skin as Erica graciously offers up a clean towel, then decides Marta will be fine on her own. And if there’s anything he should worry about, it’s that the two of them will probably be thick as thieves by the end of the day.

Derek’s sidled up to him while he’s been staring. Stiles jumps to find him so close, then scowls at the werewolf’s smirk. “God, what a creep. You’re just like your uncle.”

Derek pulls a face. “Too far.”

Stiles laughs. He likes the way Derek looks just now, none of the tension that usually runs through his broad shoulders. There’s an openness to his face, his eyes dancing in the sunlight that reflects off the water. “Hey,” Stiles adds, more hesitant now. “Do you wanna maybe go for a walk?”

Derek nods, shrugging. They wade out of the water, past the distracted girls rummaging through Boyd’s car, and into the trees. Stiles has grabbed his dry t-shirt, and he puts it back on, feeling a little flustered next to Derek’s bare chest, because wow those are some model-tier muscles. The shaded undergrowth is cooler here anyway, and they pick their way along a little dirt trail that runs nowhere in particular.

“It’s funny to see the two of you together,” Derek says suddenly. “You and Marta, I mean. You’re weirdly similar.”

“Yeah,” Stiles replies, thoughtful. “I guess we got pretty close over the summer. I hadn’t seen her in a while before this, but now…”

“Now she knows all of your deep, dark secrets?” Derek asks, amused. He’s probably referring to the way she calls him _Mischief,_ but Stiles thinks instead of the other secret Marta knows. _You should tell him,_ she’d whispered _._

He clears his throat. “Hey, um. Remember that thing I told you about spells?”

Derek gives him a blank, perplexed look. “What...how you can do them now?”

Stiles can’t help but laugh. “Sorry, that was a bad question. No, it was a while ago, back when we were just starting to text again. About how spells only happen when you actually work at them. Like, if it’s something big, something _real,_ you can’t just cast a spell and hope for the best. You have to go out and try to make it happen _._ ”

He’s stopped walking, pausing to stare meaningfully at Derek as though he can possibly understand where he’s going with this. Derek turns to face him, tilting his head, and Stiles huffs in exasperation. The werewolf looks confused—but only for a minute, because that’s when Stiles leans in to kiss him. It’s quick, just enough for him to feel how soft Derek’s lips are, how warm he is, and Stiles shivers and thinks it isn’t just from the chill of the coming evening.

When he pulls back, Derek’s staring at him in surprise. “It’s, um. So that’s a spell I kept wishing I could cast,” he adds hurriedly, stumbling to find the words. “But lately I started thinking maybe I should just go for it myse—”

The werewolf must have recovered enough to decide he doesn’t need to hear the rest, because he presses his mouth to Stiles’s, his arms snaking behind Stiles’s back to pull him closer. There might have been more Stiles wanted to say, but he can’t really remember it now—all of him narrows down to that point of contact, the movement of Derek’s lips, the feel of his tongue. Stiles fumbles with his hands, finally lifting them to the sides of Derek’s face, his short beard tickling the skin of Stiles’s palms.

“I’m glad you did,” Derek murmurs when they finally pull apart. Stiles is a little breathless, but Derek seems as cool as ever—one of the perks of being a werewolf—except that his grip is tight on Stiles’s back. Stiles finds he doesn’t mind.

“Me too,” Stiles agrees, and he presses his smile into Derek’s mouth, and then they stop talking for a while.

~*~

He wakes the next morning to sudden waves of movement. When he blearily opens his eyes, Marta is fully dressed and bouncing on his bed. “Wake up, wake _up_ ,” she says. “You have to say goodbye.” And then she flops on top of him, effectively punching all of the air out of his lungs and negating his ability to do so. “We’re leaving soon,” she mutters into his blankets.

He wriggles out from under them and gets his arms around her shoulders, squeezing her into a hug. “Get up. Come on.”

They head downstairs, where Bron’s in the shower and his dad’s making eggs and pancakes in the kitchen. The world outside is still inky black in the early morning, and just the sight of it makes Stiles yawn. Out in the living room, he helps Marta fish her spare scrunchie from under the TV stand and double-check that everything’s in her suitcase, and then she stills thoughtfully over the little glass jars she’s brought. They’re half-empty, and Stiles guesses that she must have done another protection spell for the farm sometime while they’ve been away.

“Do you want to do one last spell?” she asks him at last.

He cocks his head. “Sure. What for?”

She sits on the edge of the sofa. “One we make up,” she says hesitantly. “Something so that we stay connected even when we’re really far away again.”

Stiles nods slowly. “Something so that we keep in touch.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, relieved. “So things don’t go back to the way they were, when we never talked for like, a really long time.”

“Marta,” he says gently, “we don’t need a spell for that. Not the normal kind anyway.” He holds out his pinky, and she gives him a flat look. “No, really,” he laughs. “This is something we’re going to do together, you and me. Not because of a spell. Because of a promise _._ It’s even better.”

She stares at his hand dubiously for another moment, and then she hooks his pinky around his and shakes it. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

She lets their hands drop. “It’d be easier if Mom would get me a phone.”

Stiles smiles at her. “Dad and I may or may not have already made that pitch. Yesterday, when you were taking a bath,” he adds at her surprised look. “I mean, yeah, I don’t actually know how young most kids are when they get a phone, but you’re the smartest and best (and only) kid I know, and I feel like you can handle it. Probably better than people my age, honestly.”

“So is she thinking about it?” Marta exclaims.

“I think she is,” Stiles confirms, and Marta throws her fists into the air. “I mean, you know your mom—there’s probably gonna be lots of rules and special, like, parent control settings or whatever. But I guarantee she’ll at least let you get Words with Friends so I can cream you.”

Marta punches him indignantly, then she laughs. “Thanks, Stiles. I’m gonna spam you with _so many_ pictures of Emmy in her sweater.”

“Looking forward to it,” Stiles grins.

He helps her pack the rest of her stuff away, and then he sits on her suitcase while she zips it shut. Then he scrounges up some fruit for Marta to have for breakfast, though she refuses to eat anything before the nausea-inducing flight, and then all four of them are hurrying around the house to do last checks for lost things. Stiles and his dad pack their stuff into the rental, and then final hugs and goodbyes are dished out. Stiles squeezes Marta so tightly that he almost expects her to protest, but she’s hugging him back almost as hard.

“You’ll be here for Thanksgiving?” Stiles’s dad confirms with Bron when they’ve piled into the rental, leaning on the window as she starts the car.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Bron replies, and her smile makes the skin around her eyes crinkle.

“Get me a Tofurkey!” Marta adds from the back seat.

“We will,” Stiles says, grinning at his dad’s perplexed look. “Man, this is gonna be the healthiest Thanksgiving ever.”

“Oh god. What have I done?” his dad mutters, one corner of his mouth tilting upward.

At last they drive off, the Stilinskis waving heartily from the lawn. Marta is a dark shape in the back seat waving back, almost until the car rounds the corner.

When they’re gone, his dad yawns widely. “What a way to spend your second-to-last day before school starts up again,” he murmurs as they step back into the house. “Going back to bed?”

“Yeah, think so,” Stiles replies, rubbing his eyes. “For a couple more hours, anyway.”

His dad claps him on the back and heads back to his room.

Stiles has no intention of actually going back to bed, though. Instead, he pulls open his window and climbs out of it. “There’s gotta be a better way to meet,” he mutters under his breath.

The whole while he’d been outside, he’d felt eyes lingering on him—someone watching in the darkness. But not the kind of watcher he minds. A moment later, Derek steps out of the shadows on the other side of the roof.

“Just because I told you they were leaving now doesn’t mean you had to come all the way out here,” Stiles says, quirking a smile as he settles onto the tiles.

“Yeah, well,” Derek replies, sinking down next to him. “Moral support and all that.”

“Oh, is that why you came?” Stiles laughs.

Derek smiles at this. Instead of answering, he leans in, crowding Stiles against the side of the dormer window, and presses soft kisses into his mouth. Stiles gets a little lost in them, a tingling sensation rippling through his head, his throat, his chest, his entire body. It’s as if his nerve endings are catching fire, as if they aren’t quite sure what to do with themselves, as if all they can manage in Derek’s presence is a series of celebratory sparks that dance over his skin.

He slides his hands around Derek’s back, feeling the ridges of his spine move under his fingers. And then he wants to know what Derek’s skin feels like, and that’s something he can have now, something he can finally learn. Giddy with that thought, he slips his hands under the fabric of Derek’s shirt, and Derek rewards him with a low groan and a press of tongue into his mouth.

Stiles doesn’t know where the time goes, but at last, they break apart. The clouds have started to brighten to the east. A band of coppery red spreads across the horizon, a border of purple separating it from the rest of the deep blue sky. The light makes Derek’s face glow a little, and Stiles realizes that one of his hands has cupped Derek’s cheek of its own free will. He finds that he likes Derek this way, his expression soft and maybe even a little sleepy.

Eventually Derek clears his throat, moving to give Stiles a little more breathing room, though he doesn’t completely pull away. “There’s a pack meeting later, if you can come. Just to get us on the same page before the school year starts.” Derek murmurs. “Things are gonna be different now,” he adds hesitantly, and he settles back a bit as if he’s not sure of Stiles’s response.

Stiles smiles, and then he leans a little more into Derek. “Yeah, they will. I’m looking forward to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He finally made it home! :D Hope you enjoyed the pretty calm conclusion - I originally toyed with the idea of having Stiles get madder about what happened, but I honestly think that after an entire summer like the one he's had, he'd be pretty thrilled just to be back (but as stated, reserving the right to be pissed if he feels like it later lol).
> 
> While I have zero intention of ever making a sequel to this (way too many other TW fic ideas running around in my head), I MAY eventually one day post a little epilogue to show how everyone is a few months or a year down the line. I'm leaving this as "complete" since I don't have a concrete plan at the moment, but it's a possibility!
> 
> If you've gotten this far, I'd love to hear what you thought! Kudos and comments are amazing, I treasure every one even if it's just a single emoji, and I'm really glad you've read along with me :) 'Till next time!


End file.
